


(and So He Flew) Too Close to the Sun

by shiiera



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 1980s, All Aboard the Emo Train Choo Choo, Allusions to the Casting Couch, Alternate Universe, Angst, Ben’s a journalist and Rey’s a model, Blow Jobs, Completed Story — Under Revision, Cunnilingus, Dark Reylo, Descriptions of sex, Drama, Drunk Sex, F/M, First Person Perspective, In that they'e really dysfunctional, Journalism, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Suicide, Modeling, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pay for Play Politics, Period Typical Attitudes, Period Typical Language, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Potentially OOC, Recreational Drug Use, Rey’s gonna need a hug, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Smut, Vaginal Sex, Wall Sex, mentions of drug abuse, mentions of past sexual abuse, recovering alcoholism, unhealthy behaviors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 01:40:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 91,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18713923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiiera/pseuds/shiiera
Summary: It’s the mid-1980s and the parties are hot, the money is plentiful, and the drugs are everywhere. Ben Solo, a 29 year old former Yuppie, is looking for his second big break in New York City as a journalist and ends up with a dead end gig doing freelance work for Vanity Fair under the editorial supervision of Poe Dameron.A chance assignment gives him the opportunity to cover an exclusive with an up and coming, high profile model named Rey Nima.He never thought of himself to be star struck, but there’s something about this girl that has him flying way too close to the sun.





	1. part i : chapter i

**Part** **I |** **Chapter** **I**

* * *

 

The kitchen was chaotic. The chef barked orders at his sous chefs like the lieutenant from Full Metal Jacket; there was no compassion, there was not even a semblance of camaraderie between coworkers.

He called them idiots, sometimes even the colorful dumbfuck, and demanded they remake the merengue because it’s not ‘fluffy’ enough. No one dared to talk back because there was only one thing they all had to agree on: dishes need to be made and food needs to be cooked for order.

Did the chef know I was standing here, outside the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen? Did he understand that the journalist he was belittling his staff for did not care for how perfectly tourched the creme brûlée needed to be?

I wasn’t a foodie — still not one — I couldn’t tell apart the taste of rib-eye steak from a sirloin. It all tasted the same — meaty, and with a good steak sauce, juicy.

There was no way I could figure out what the perfect creme brûlée was supposed to taste like. I just wasn’t wired that way. Duck? I know it’s greasy, but it’s still gamy like chicken. Over cooked and it’s rubber. That’s as far as I go when it comes to food.

And the pairing wine? I never touched it.

Because I don’t drink.

I have no idea why Poe continued to send me to these restaurants around midtown to write reviews. He knew I was inept at these assignments, my reviews always ended up with me comparing a Big Mac to a filet minon, and yet here I was at this French restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen witnessing the utter meltdown of their soft open.

A plate crashed to the floor in the kitchen.

I scribble my thoughts down.

Salty. Chewy. Dead.

I underlined the word dead a few times for emphasis. I though it was funny but I’m sure Poe, in all his fancy suits and slicked back hair, did not find it amusing at all. Again, I had to remind him that it was him that decided to send the most unqualified freelance journalist to cover this event.

I found my way back to my table and took a sip from the tepidly warm water in the wine glass.

Perrier — not the rotting pipes of Manhattan.

Another line in the notebook. Anyone with a working tastebud could figure out, almost immediately, the difference between city tap and bottled water. I almost felt a tinge pride at being able to figure out what kind once I saw the green glass bottles sitting on ice at various tables.

Over time, I learned that it was less about the food and more about the stars when it came to my work. It would explain why Poe kept me on this beat. No one ever really talked about the critic’s opinion; they only talked about the stars the place got and that the food wasn’t burnt. I had been getting good at that.

Or maybe he just pitied me. Until the foodie gig, I was out of work for weeks. The new two hundred fifty words (or less) food column was the best he could give me.

I guess I should have consider it a nice gesture. I was getting free meals — and those went a long way — but I rather focus on the minor details. Like the tacky gold embroidered curtains that hung in the window or the waitress crying inside the kitchen because she dropped the plate of frog legs all over the kitchen floor.

There was also the pianist in the corner playing George Michael’s Careless Whisper, which was an odd choice for an apparently “French” restaurant, but everyone loved that song these days, so no one cared.

The double doors swung open again with a new waiter holding a tray with that creme brûlée right when the pianist jumped into Lionel Richie's Hello. There was only a few brief moments for me to get a clear view of the kitchen and I take it. The waitress was still crying, Todd was still berating his staff, and the duck was still in the oven.

I jot this all down in my beat up spiral notebook; white pages warped from the countless times I’ve spild drinks over it.

Before the waiter could come to my table with the frog legs, I stuffed my notebook into the pocket of my borrowed sports jacket. I grabbed a mint on the way out of the restaurant; there was no obligation for me to stay the whole course. Besides, I did not think a creme brûlée would have gone well with the aftertaste of a dead, greasy duck.

* * *

It was raining again.

It had been raining for the last week and it looked like the rain would not be stopping any time soon. The windows of the diner were fogging up from the contrasting difference in temperature — it was a comfortable warmth while freezing rain felt like knives against skin. Spring has officially been in town for the last couple of weeks, but the weather was still as bitter and as miserable as if winter was a scorned lover, lounging around, overstaying its welcome.

It was late into the night, not yet midnight, but the clock was striking close. Young party goers run into the diner for refuge. A group of young girls in soaking wet, fake fur coats over spandex dresses looking like wet poodles with their young guys flanked around them in those ill fitting, bright colored suits and questionably real Cuban links. They were loud, drunk, and they ordered nothing but coffee and chocolate creme pie.

The kid in the red suit poured something from his flask into his cup of coffee once he got it. His girlfriend with the large hoop earrings took the flask from him and has a large helping for herself. It wasn’t even a Friday night, for fuck’s sake — it was a Wednesday.

But that’s how things are in the city that never sleeps. It doesn’t matter what day it is; any night is a reason to party. It was the first thing I learned when I first moved into this hell hole: no one ever sleeps, greed is good, and sex is plentiful. There’s also this myth about being able to be whatever you want to be here in the Big Apple…

I have yet to find out if its true or not.

Beatrice came by my booth with a hot pot of coffee and a sardonic smirk on her plump, makeup heavy face that makes her look older than her years. Her brown hair is permed like the rest of the girls these days, pulled up in a high ponytail and accented with a yellow scarf to match her yellow uniform. She has been working nights here for years, the first person I ever spoke to when I arrived in town. A single mother of two boys, her husband had been skimping on the child support for years and most of the money she made went towards the legal fees of chasing him down.

I understood her plight; its hard when you got a father who’s more of a stranger than the man that gave you life. At least mine made sure the check arrived every month.

“ It’s gonna be another one of them nights,” She said as she topped off my cup. “ I hope they tip well.”

“ Kids like them don’t tip,” I said as I continued to consolidate my ideas into my old notebook. I was running out of pages and I didn’t want to waste any more on this shit job. I took all the real estate the singled lined page could give me; the spine, the margins, even the header. “ They’re just paying the entrance fee for shelter.”

“ That’s why I like you, Solo,” She gave me a pat on the shoulder, her red press on nails digging into the shoulder pad of my jacket as she squeezed for reassurance, “ You tip more than you order.”

I briefly looked up at her and gave her a lopsided smirk, “ I appreciate good company.”

She grinned at me with a yellow tooth smile that screamed years of coffee and cigarettes, “ You’re too young for me.”

I dropped my head down into my notebook and continue my scribbling. Yeah, I know.

As she walked away, my eyes drifted to the beat up issue of Vanity Fair lying next to my notebook. It was a couple of months old, at least, but I still carried it around as if it’d give me some inspiration or energy or something. I remembered picking up the copy at a newsstand outside of the Condé Nast building after getting hired by my mother’s high school friend, Amilyn Holdo. Freelance writer was the title; it was the best she could do given the circumstances, or whatever that meant. She was one of the head editors at The New Yorker and she couldn’t get me a staff writer position. That was the excuse before she passed me off to this guy named Poe Dameron like a last pick in a dodgeball game. It was almost insulting.

No, it was pretty damn insulting.

I minored in political science. I know how to write an article on the shitstorm that was President Reagan’s new economic plan. I don’t know the first thing about fashion and yet there I was, a freelance journalist for Vanity Fair, writing 250 word articles on restaurants and city events.

It was a revival of the original after new owners bought the company from the Condé Nast family. It was easier to get in through the door that way. That’s what she told me and I believed her. Actually, I wanted to believe her. I tried to believe her. I liked to think those circumstances had something to do with my mother and she was taking it out on me in the most passive aggressive way possible.

I opened the magazine up, flip through all the useless advertisements filled with beautiful people outside of my realm of comprehension, and turnt to the first editorial piece. The up and coming faces of the modeling world; five pages dedicated to five models that were apparently in demand. I didn’t know much about it, to me they all look the same once you get down to the nit and gritty of it all.

There was one face that stood out, though, to me in the group of thin, pale faced models huddled together in semi-nude. I flipped through the pages until I land on the final black and white photo of this girl in a bed, wrapped in white linen with a playful smile across her features.

She was different, almost a girl next door innocence in contrast to the other models with sharp features and dead eyes. Her cheeks and shoulders were covered in freckles that seem to stand out more in the contrast of the photo than I imagine they’d appear in real life. Her legs were playfully up in the air, the sheets on the bed only covering what needed to be covered — enough for the imagination. There was an article on the adjacent page, but I never could bring myself to actually read it. Just the name in italicized serif font in the lower left hand corner of her photo: Rey Niima.

I continued to flip through book in a vague attempt to not come off like some creep in a diner somewhere off of the corner of Sixth Avenue and Watts.

My notebook is filled up and my time is up. I looked across the diner at the party of four. They looked like a Memphis Group design come to life through a funhouse mirror. Against the dim lights and the bright neon bleeding through the windows from the outside, I’m surprised neither of them had become nauseous from their own bodacious fashion choices. I flipped to the next page in my notebook and wrote down a few quick words of inspiration: Parties, youth, oversized power suits, diners and Memphis Group. If I ever got lucky to write my own opinion piece, this would serve me well.

I dropped a twenty on the table as I got up. A dollar for the coffee, three for the burger, and sixteen for the service. I did not wait to see Beatrice smile or what the four party animals planned to do once the rain stopped pouring. I grabbed a random umbrella from the rack outside the diner and walked home with my notebook and magazine tucked into the jacket and my mouth filled with the lingering taste of a greasy duck and a half-eaten burger.

  
* * *

I don’t drink. There is a reason why I don’t drink. A plethora of reasons, actually.

The man that sat before me with his head in his hands and a bottle of aspirins next to his elbow on the desk was one of those reasons. Poe Dameron looked like shit — his usually greased curly mane was a frizzy mess of loose curls fighting for control from the slab of gel in which he tried to tame them with. His blue striped dress shirt with the white collar and cuffs was wrinkled and the burgundy tie looked like the attempt of a twelve year. He wiped his face with a loud sigh and looked at me, a hand outstretched and waiting for my report.

At least he had half the mind to shave before coming in.

His office was small but it gave a great view of Forty Fifth Street and the ants below — the pedestrians of New York City. Modest and minimal with a coffee table covered in issues of Vanity Fair between two black leather couches. The only other furnitures were his desk, swivel chair and the other chair adjacent to the desk.  
  
I reached over and handed him the one page, two hundred fifty word, report and he took it from me — excuse me — snatched it from me without saying another word.

His eyes were bloodshot. He must have partied extremely hard last night.

“ I did, actually,” Poe groaned with a hoarse voice that matched his shitty look. “ Who would have thought a birthday celebration can get that crazy? I sure didn’t.”

I did not go to birthday parties, so I wouldn’t have know the scale in which to compare simple ones with a cake and the ones that had people like Poe look like a succubus had sucked every inch of his life out of him. I did not care to know, either. Being social was not my thing. Likewise, I honestly didn’t want to make the situation awkward for either of us, so I asked the question anyway, “ Whose birthday was it?”

Poe reached for the bottle of aspirin. He popped the cap, opened his mouth, and taped two pills in. He swallowed them down, dry, and it gave me memories of days long forgotten — days I had wished to forget. I heard the pop of the cap sealing against the plastic bottle and it took me away from that messy trail of bad, blurred memories.

“ Jonathan Snoke,” Poe eventually got out. He was reading my review but his mouth is still running, “ The head of the First Order Agency, you know? I’m sure you know him. Everyone knows Jonathan Snoke. Anyway, got an invite to his birthday celebration a couple of a weeks ago. Now, everyone in the industry gets an invitation but I didn’t expect to get one. So, I go and — wow, you really aren’t going into any detail on the dishes — anyway, the party is just insane. This guy is turning seventy-five years old and he has naked girls hanging off of fucking ropes and swinging in birdcages everywhere.”

I had no idea who he was talking about. I knew that he noticed that I he not bothered going to any detail about the food, though. Considering he was my editor, the lack of critique into what I write was always annoying.

Then again, I should have been used to it by now. Poe never did much editing. Everything I wrote just got sent straight to the presses.

Poe continued on about this party for an old man with strippers and birdcages. I waited for him to dissect my piece and tell me what to fix.

Ten minutes.

Fifteen minutes.

And he still continued on about that party.

Why am I here again?

“ I got a job for you.”

Suddenly he wasn’t talking about parties for perverted old men. I leaned forward in the uncomfortably low leather seat and clasped my hands together in my lap. I’m reminded of why I’m there — work.

“ More restaurants?” I asked . Poe dropped the typed up report in the trash. I could feel the pain of my nails digging into the skin of my palms. This son of a bitch….

“Bigger. The big times, baby.” The asshole got up from his desk. He walked over to the small table placed against the wall of his office. I watched as he turned over two glasses and popped open the glass cap of the decanter he kept in his office for ‘special occasions’.

It was not even ten in the morning and yet here we were. Did he not have a headache? Did he not just take two aspirin pills? The guy was a mess.

Everyday I asked myself why Poe was on that side of the table and not me.

Every. Single. Day.

“ I managed to score an exclusive with the First Order’s biggest star, Ben,” Poe poured the whiskey into the glasses, “ And I want you to write the piece.”

He walked over to me and handed me a glass. I took it into my hands. He tapped his against mine before downing the harsh liquor in one swing. I sat there and watched — I had absolutely no desire to drink this.

Poe knew this but I guess he was still drunk.

“ How exclusive are we talking about?” I gently placed the glass down on his desk. Poe did not notice since he was looking outside his office window.

“ Cover story.”

“ Cover story?”

He was drunk. Had to have been because this made no sense. There were so many staff writers employed at the god forsaken magazine, that I did not understand how or why I was being assigned a cover story. Poe rounded the desk and grabbed my shoulders.

“ Cover story!” He said as he shook me. He quickly let me go as if he subconsciously realized he had crossed a line. Which wasn’t wrong — I hate people in my personal space.

Poe waltzed over to the coffee table with the magazines. I could hear him pick up an issue. “ This is the chance you’ve been waiting for, Ben. Your name on the cover story of a leading magazine.”

“ Actually, my goal is to work as a political correspondent but whatever.” I mumbled as I turned in my seat to look at him. The damn thing was too small for my frame and my back hurt from the twisting. I gave up and got up with a huff.

“ So… you don’t want this?”

Poe looked at the cover of the 1984 December issue of Vanity Fair. Joan Collins was on the cover, looking as Hollywood regal as a photographer can make her. In striking red letters that match her overconfident smile was: She Rhymes with Rich.

This was the caliber in which I was now reaching. The association of writers in which I had become apart of. Writing pieces lamenting on the rich and famous, building them up and making them seem other than earthly. God-like beings whom which us normal Americans only wish we could become. A messenger to the masses; I would become the few lucky enough to speak with a god.

But humans are not gods and I was far from becoming Icarus at that point. I weighed my options and figured it’d make a nice addition to my suffering resume.

I nodded, “ I’ll do it. It’s a cover, after all.”

Poe put the magazine down and clapped his hands together.

“ Great. Great, great, great. Good news. I got photographer for you to work with too. Great guy, I think you’ve met him a few times in the past.”

Poe walked past me again and I took note of how much more shorter he was than I had realized. I was so used to him seated behind that desk that I never took care to find out if he came up to my shoulder.

He picked up the phone and told his secretary to let someone into his office.

Suddenly I was in an impromptu meeting. Things moved fast in this city or Poe was a terrible planner.

I hear the door open and I watched as Poe’s face went from a miserable hangover to a beaming ray of morning light. The guy was practically running towards the door as he cheerfully yelled out the name of a guy that I had hoped I would never hear again while working for this company…

Or in this city.

“ Armitage Hux! Great to see you again!”

Poe enveloped the British photographer in a hug, slapping his back a few times. I tried to ignore the fact Poe had to get on his toes to actually hug him.

Hux, on the other hand, was trying to detangle himself from Poe’s locked embrace, “ Likewise.”

Ah, I had forgot Hux’s cardinal rule: Don’t mess up the suit.

He straightened the grey suit by tugging at the ends and corrected his lopsided black tie, all the while mumbling about the countless of times he has told Poe to not hug him like that, especially in public. He lightly patted his slicked back red hair, making sure nothing had came loose from its waxed hold.

Finally, Hux looked at me and sighed dramatically as a sign of acknowledging my presence. So began our manly war of wits. He walked over to one of the couches in the room and sat down with a dramatic sigh and a cross of his legs.

Subtlety was never his middle name.

“ So I’m working with this brute?” Hux said with a cock eyebrow. “ Do you remember what happened the last time we worked together, Dameron?”

“ He broke your camera.”

“ He did more than break my camera, you idiot!” He shrilled as he pointed at me. “ He destroyed my negatives by ripping the film out like the ill mannered unstable brute that he is!”

“ And I’m pretty sure we bought you a new one.”

“ I worked hard for that camera, and you know it.”

Suddenly I was not in the room anymore. It amazed me how those two would simply fall into this rhythm of banter that managed to exclude everyone else around them.

And, yes, I did break his camera but he caught me in a bad mood. I warned him to shut up and let me do my job but he kept insisting that we make sure that flowers be on the table for the shot when the chef felt as if flowers around his food would be an insult to him and his brand. The problem with Hux was that he always thought he was right and everyone else around him is wrong. I decided to find a solution to that problem.

“ I… am... only doing this because its Jonathan Snoke, otherwise,” Hux eyed me with disgust and a shake of his head, “ I would have walked away from this job. I refuse to work with him. Look at him. Can he at least put on a jacket for Christ’s sake? He looks like he rolled right off a dirty mattress in a back alley!”

I looked down at what I was wearing. A black t-shirt and a pair of jeans. I did not know about back alleys Hux was familiar with, but I guessed they were the classy ones on the Upper East Side where the drug addicts got high in limos parked in said alleyways.

“ Hey, hey, now! I think we can all be friends here, right? Let the past bygones be bygones.”

“ … Kill it if you have to.” I mumbled with a roll of my eyes. Hux sat up on the couch and gasped, placing a scandalized hand over his chest.

“ Are you threatening me?”

I leaned against the wall opposite of the two and crossed my arms over my chest, “ Anyway, Poe, what are the details for this assignment?”

Poe was not a good mediator of arguments. He only managed to add fuel to the fire. Always. I had learned the hard way that the best way to bring any conversation back full circle was to just change the topic.

Poe was a talker and Hux was a whiner, put the two together and nothing ever got done. Sometimes I would notice how Poe would put his hands on Hux’s shoulders and lean forward, just enough so that it didn’t seem too personal, and that would be enough to calm the ginger down. They would finally finally get something done.

And I would try not to think too much into it, especially when Poe decided to do it at that moment, and Hux look sheepishly elsewhere, like an embarrassed child.

With the photographer calmed down, Poe continued, “ We did a piece on her a couple of months ago but if you don’t know, her name is Rey. Rey Niima and she’s the new star over at the First Order Agency. Snoke wants to really push this girl out there so I managed to negotiate a cover story featuring her in a twelve page photoshoot spread.”

I shifted.

I did not expect to end up working with her. I covered restaurants and local culture events… Never once in my farthest dreams did I expect to work with that girl.

I flexed my fingers. It was just a job.

“ Really? Her?”

Hux’s nasally disapproval took me from my thoughts. He sighed dramatically again, and rolled his shoulders which effectively made Poe step back. Hux turned around and looked up at the touchy editor. He threw his hands up.

“ I don’t make the rules, man, I just follow them.”

Hux’s eyes narrowed, “ There’s a catch here. There’s always a catch with you.”

“ If the issue sells we get exclusive use of all their models for the next year. Editorials will be flying off the shelves with how hot in demand the First Order is.”

I haven’t got a damn clue what was going on. But Hux, oh did this news tickle his little fancy. He stood up and started rambling about the chance of working with some model named Phasma. He sounded like a kid in a toy store, gushing over the latest new toy and explaining the reasons why this toy was so cool and why he absolutely needed it.

This was it. This was going to make him the next Annie Leibovitz. Me, on the other hand, I was lucky if this got me through the doors at NBC.

“ Its scheduled for next week. Down at the Meatpacking District. I’m sure you can make some magic happen, Hux. Scout the area and give me the details so we can get the place secured. And as for you, Ben,” Poe walked over to his desk and opens the drawer. He took out a box and tossed it to me.

I caught it and looked at it, “ Enough with the notebook. Catch up to the eighties and start using that.”

It was a Casio tape recorder. Brand new.

I hated tape recorders.

“ You can’t make me use this.” I eventually said.

Poe was grinning at me, “ I can make you do a lot of things, my man.”

For some reason, I did not doubt those words to be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy,
> 
> It’s been a year since I wrote something. This fic has been my baby that I worked on, quietly, without anyone knowing about it except for one close friend ❤️ who has read most of it. I’ve completed this story and have begun revisions. I plan to post one chapter per month.
> 
> I had my doubts about this story and debated posting it. After Celebration, I decided to bite the bullet and post it. I hoe you all enjoy it.
> 
> It is a three part story and nearly 150 pages. It starts light but will gradually get darker. I hope you all enjoy it :)


	2. part i : chapter ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ben meets a caged bird and is curious to hear how it sings.

  **part i : chapter ii  
**

I had lived in a studio apartment near one sixty-first and Amsterdam Avenue. A prewar walk-up that was about six stories. It was comparatively cheap to what I could had afforded in New York at the time. I paid around three hundred bucks a month and in exchange for the cheap rent, I had to walk up six flights of stairs in a building that lacked A/C and smelled like piss all year round. I would have complained to the building super, but the old woman always threatening to raise my rent or kick me out if I uttered anything remotely sounding like a grievance.

Times were tough. I knew that. The crack epidemic had choked out the city. It was not like she could control the addict on the third floor from using the hallway as his bathroom whenever he was too high to make it inside his place.

And, I really could not have afforded to move out. The apartment was a best case scenario for everyone involved.

The apartment below me always played salsa loud on the boom box. It was always a song by Hector Lavoe; the voice of Puerto Rico as the neighbor had told me once.  She was an older woman in her fifties, hailing from Santurce, Puerto Rico. She had not been back home since she arrived over thirty years ago. Playing those songs was her comfort, her way of never forgetting home.

The music was different. Livelier. Not like the classical shit my mother played on the old record player or the hippy rock my uncle and father enjoyed. It did not remind me of home and I was glad for it.

The kids were playing at the park down the hill, I could hear the hip hop music blasting from the boomboxes from my emergency escape. If I bothered to look up from the magazine I was reading, I could have probably seen them breakdancing.

It was finally dry outside, which was good news for Hux who decided to take the photo shoot outside, but a pain in the ass for me who had to interview the girl against the loud noises of trucks and cars.

I had been reading her interview in that beat up Vanity Fair for the past couple of days.

She was tragically unremarkable. The answers she gave to the magazine were generic, atypical responses by someone trying to be something they were obviously not.

Favorite food? Burgers. Favorite movie? Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Why did you want to become a model? To see the world.

I guessed her appeal at that time was for the innocence factor. Not too young but not too old. Perfectly at the right season for picking.

There was not much I could get from the article, and whenever I turned the page I was greeted with an ad for Chanel no. 5. I flipped back and forth between her picture and the perfume advertisement hoping for some inspiration or ideas on what to actually ask her. There was nothing.

I got up and stretched my back before crawling through my window to get inside my apartment. I tossed the magazine onto my bed and shut the window.

My apartment had become silent. No more Hector Lavoe. No more breakdancing kids. No more cars and loud Spanglish conversations in the street. Just the sound of a broken clock and my thoughts. I looked at the telephone sitting on top of my work desk, next to my old IBM Selectric II Typewriter. The typewriter was a high school graduation gift from my father. I could had invested in a computer, but I never had the patience to learn how to navigate a machine, and for some reason I found it hard to part with the damn thing. Call it daddy issues

I could have called my uncle. He would had known what to do. He was the reason why I decided to become a journalist. There was something alluring about traveling the world and writing about far away places for a living that seemed a hell of a lot more exciting than becoming a lawyer or a mechanic.

My hand hovered over the black rotary. It would have been so easy to just pick it up and dial his number.

But I couldn’t. Not after the night I stormed out of his office with my typewriter and a bus ticket to New York City. I said some fucked up shit that night. Left him hanging on an assignment; walked out without looking back. I still can’t bring myself to apologize to this day.

And, until I apologize to him, I can never bring myself to call him.

I could have called Hux… but fuck that. His voice was more annoying over the phone than in real life. Besides, I didn’t need his condescending attitude that early in the day and Poe was absolutely useless when it came to advice on anything.

I picked up the magazine off my bed and lied down. I opened it up and turned to her page for the millionth time. I tried to not focus on her smile.

* * *

It was raining.

I knew the good weather was too good to be true. The crew had to move everything from the rooftop of this old, empty former textile factory in the Meatpacking District to the floor directly below. The building was still in the middle of a renovation. There were ladders scattered all over the open space. The concrete floor was covered in a thin layer of white dust and dirt. There were electrical wires exposed above our heads.

“ These conditions are absolutely abhorrent.”

Hux’s face was scrunched up in displeasure. His pants were covered in the dust that had been kicked up into the air by the crew setting up the floor for the photo shoot; black slacks smeared in dusty white. His camera hung from his neck while his hands rested on his jutted hips. I never understood why he was angry at the situation. He was the one that picked the location and he was the idiot that decided to wear a black suit to a building under renovations.

“ No, no, no. The lamp doesn’t go _there_ it's supposed to go _over there_.” He threw his hands up in a huff as he stalked over to the poor intern struggling with one of the lights. “ Must I do _everything_ here?”

The makeup artist slid next to me. I had seen her before, on one of my first assignments; a middle-aged woman with a shaggy bob dyed black and a nose ring. Her left arm was completely covered in a sleeve of random tattoos that she never bothered to cover up. If she had not walked around with that makeup tool belt, I would have expected her to be a Joan Jett groupie that got lost.

“He’s lucky he’s good at what he does,” She told me as she chewed on gum. Her voice was scratchy like a chain smoker, “Or else everyone here would have walked out on the first shrill.

“Yeah…”

I did not necessarily disagree with her. Hux, despite all his grievances, was a really talented photographer. I had seen his work before; it was just unfortunate that his personally sucked.

The makeup artist blew a bubble with a pop. The gum crackled in her mouth. She was dying for a cigarette.

“Speak of the Devil…. Our princess has arrived.”

I looked up at the service elevator as the makeup artist walked away, back to her area of the photo shoot, to see _her_ in person walking towards us. Unlike the team of stressed out underpaid interns and staffers I’ve been surrounded with for the last hour and a half, Rey’s demeanor in contrast was relaxed and completely undisturbed by the sudden changes that affected the photoshoot.

She was talking to a guy in a grey suit, who had been looking at an open leather-bound planner in his hands, with a smile spread across her face. Even in her damp white A-line dress, she still managed to glow. There was a bounce to her step that made her ponytail swing side to side from behind.

I had to admit; it had that Audrey Hepburn cuteness to it.

Hux had ran to intercept as if he was dog that had picked up a scent. He did not extend his hand out to shake, he instead gave a rather tight, awkward smile.

“ We had to make some changes as you can see, but hopefully you won’t mind.”

Rey laughed, completely unbothered, “ I’ve been through worst. Trust me. What’s the concept?”

Interesting.

I had not known she was British.

As the two talked, I did not notice the guy in the grey suit walk over to me. He cleared his throat and I turned my head. He was shorter than Poe. Much shorter.

“ You must be the journalist,” He said matter-of-fact. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small business card case. “ My name is Dopheld Mitaka. I’m Miss Niima’s manager.”

I took the card. It was basic — embossed black serif on white cardstock. I took a look — he was her manager and Jonathan Snoke’s personal assistant. There did not seem to be much of a degree of separation at the agency, it seemed, or she was really that high profile to be managed by the CEO’s personal assistant.

I spent about two more seconds pondering the situation before introducing myself.

“ I’m Ben Solo.”

“ I know.”

He pocketed the case of cards.

“ Okay.”

“ I’ve read your past work. You’ve only covered food and social events.” He flipped through his planner. Not once had he made eye contact with me. “ You are someone who likes to be brutally honest about things that aren’t necessarily within your purview.”

I never thought of it that way, but okay.

“ We, at the First Order, demand that the journalists who interview our talent stick to the script. No personal questions. No politics. No religion. Obtuse and generic topics only. Like food and movies.” He finally decided to look up at me. I had never seen such lifeless eyes in my life.  “ There is a brand that we must protect and we can’t protect that brand if we allow journalists to abuse our models.”

He closed his planner with a snap for emphasis. I never met a robot before, either. I guess that day was full of firsts.

I nodded and apparently that was enough for him to leave me and rejoin Rey at the wardrobe with the stylist. If I had to think like my Uncle Lando, I guess I just made lemonade out of lemons with him making my job easier. So much for beating myself up over the last few days on how I was going to approach this interview. All I needed to do was talk about hamburgers and The Breakfast Club.

Mitaka whispered something into Rey’s ear and she suddenly looked up at me. I did not know if I should have waved or looked somewhere else.

I waved.

She went back to shuffling through the wardrobe with the stylist.

Awkward.

I walked over to Hux, who was standing next to the table with a bunch of camera lenses spread out on some cloth. I never understood why camera men needed so many lenses, but on the contrary, I’m sure a camera man would never understand why I insisted on writing all my thoughts in an old, beat up notebook.

I decided to not comment on his lens collection.

“ Don’t mind him. He’s a sniveling little rat who wishes he was something in this industry.” Hux told me as he went through his camera and adjusted the settings for the shoot.

“ I guess you don’t like him very much.”

“ I don’t like anyone who hides behind a name.” Hux looked up at me, “ I’ll take the photos first. You can interview her later.

“ Fine.”

He always wanted to have control of the situation. Ironic he disliked that Mitaka guy for similar reasons. There was a hierarchy in this industry that I had not known yet at the time, but I didn’t care to learn about it either.

From the corner of my eye, I saw that Rey had moved from the wardrobe to the Joan Jett lookalike, sitting in her makeup chair. Whatever makeup the girl had on when she came in, the makeup artist was wiping it off. I could finally see her freckles.

She looked better with freckles.

“ So, what’s the theme.” I asked. I needed a distraction.

Hux looked at me as if I had asked him the dumbest question of the year. Honestly, I was getting real tired of his shit. I moved my jaw — it was something I did whenever I got annoyed or frustrated. Uncle would always tell me that it looked like I was swallowing my anger. Maybe I was.

“ Good girl with an edge. Playful yet sexy.” He sighed.

“ You needed the rooftop for that.”

“ Of _course_ I needed the rooftop. My God, you’re annoying.”

I could not stop looking at her. The makeup artist painted her lips in a deep red and her eyes were smeared in charcoal colored eyeshadow. She had transformed from a random girl with a ponytail into a succubus with smoky eyes and blood red lips.

“ The feeling is mutual.” I muttered. I ripped my attention from Rey and tried to focus it on Hux. “ I have a suggestion.”

“ What is it?”

“ Can you take some pictures of her … behind the scenes?”

Hux queued the film with a hum, “ You mean take some offshoots?”

I gave him a look, but he was too preoccupied with his camera to see the frustration written all over my face. How Poe was able to work with this prick, I never did understand at the time. Taking the moment to recollect myself, I sighed in resignation.

“ Yeah, yeah. _That_. Can you do it?” I paused, realizing I might had needed to explain myself further before the redhead got any weird thoughts in his weird little brain. “ I think they’ll be great for the editorial.”

“ I’ll think about it.”

Thinking about it meant that he’d do it. He simply did not want to _admit_ to doing it; not openly at least. It was that stupid pride that he could never seem to let go. I wonder if anyone told him that pride could only get you so far and then you get fucked.

He took off his jacket to reveal a dark grey colored vest. He always dressed like a deranged yuppie on Wall Street. It was obnoxious and yet it fit his personality like a glove. Everything about him was so fucking annoying.

He held his jacket out at me, “ Hold this. Make sure it doesn’t get dirty.”

I take it from his outstretched hand. He ran back to the set, camera in hand.

Once he was occupied with Rey again, I dropped it onto the ground. I looked down and, wow, what a pity. It was covered in white dust. If only someone was here to hold it.

I pulled out one of the chairs and sat down.

I’m not your fucking intern, asshole.

* * *

I did not understand the concept of playful yet sexy when Hux told me, but Rey managed to teach me without having to say a word. The hair stylist teased her hair between takes, fighting against the stuffy humidity. The woman had honestly outdone herself with the hair — turning Rey’s long, straight hair into a big, teased curly cascade accented with a black bandana tied around her head.

I never cared for fashion trends but…. I liked this.

Not too far off from the photo shoot was that Mitaka fellow. He held the planner close to his chest as he watched her like a hawk. I had met some managers before and none of them had acted in the way that this guy did. How old was this girl anyway? If his actions were any indication, she had to be no older than eighteen. He came off like a legal guardian rather than an actual manager.

“ Okay, so, I need you to stand against that pillar. Yes, yes. Perfect. Just like that.”

Hux was snapping away with his camera as his intern shuffled around him like a puppy starved for attention.

“ I need a little bit more sexy — Perfect!”

I don’t think I could ever deal with Hux’s encouragement. Even with the upbeat New Wave music that played in the background, he still sounded like a creep. But, Rey delivered on command. I could not stop watching her work that camera like a natural.

She leaned against the iron pillar and lifted her hands above her head. She held on to it and tilted  her head slightly up, enough so her bangs could fall into her face and her chest pushed out, so the camera could capture the cleavage — or lack thereof. She moved again and — ah, there we go, the side boob shot.

She was only in jeans and a white blouse, but it was partially unbuttoned and oversized. One slight twist of her body and could have been flashing the world.

“ They say she has the best tits in the game,” the stylist told me with a chuckle. I totally forgot the guy was standing next to me. “ Glad I decided to go with that.”

I did know what to say so I just nodded. She was rather flat chested but then again everyone in this industry were. The ones with the double Ds ended up in Playboy.

I used to wonder what was the difference between this and a smut mag, but after spending time on this shoot I realized there was no difference between either publication. In the end, everyone here were a bunch of perverts trying to sell high fashion with sex. The only thing separating the two was that Hugh Hefner was not shy to admit it.

“ I want to do one more outfit and then we’ll be done.” Hux announced. He took his camera, gave it to the intern, and everyone began to move. The makeup artist touched Rey up, the stylist grabbed something off the rack — a black leather jacket — and got Rey out of the blouse and into the jacket.

In those few moments, Rey was topless in front of everyone. I had expected a reaction but there was none. Everyone simply did their jobs as if it was completely normal for people to just change outfits in the open. I looked because it was impossible not to.

They were really not that bad. Perfectly round and perky.

My mind went back to the issue of her I had sitting on top of my desk. It shamelessly wandered to the page of her lying on that bed, except now I could visualize her without the sheets covering her body.

Fuck.

I was a mess. I had been in that building for way too long. I was becoming one of the perverts. The humidity was making me think improper things. It had to have been.

I honestly could have done better than that. Really.

“ For these last shots I’d like you to lie on the floor and look away from the camera.” Hux said to Rey. She nodded as she stood there while the makeup artist fixed her hair.

“ Like a glamour shot?”

“ Yes, yes. Exactly. These won’t be full body, either.”

I looked at Mitaka. He still looked like Daddy of the Year from the sidelines. I needed to channel whatever he was channeling. Become a robot like him, disconnect myself or whatever.

Rey lied down on the floor. Hux directed her and she listened attentively, obeying every command. Lie on your side. Hold your hand out like this. Let the jacket fall just enough so we can see half of your tit. Look over my shoulder. Blah, blah, blah. Sometimes I think he loves to hear himself speak.

One final snap.

“ Beautiful.”

* * *

“ Hi, my name is Ben. I’ll be interviewing you today.”

She smiled , “ Hi, I’m Rey. I’m being interviewed today.”

Wow. That was cheeky.

The photo shoot wrapped up an hour ago, but between tearing down the set and getting her back to Rey the Person, not Rey the Model, took some time. The floor had been cleared out except for the table I was sitting at with Hux’s equipment. Everyone had left as well. Hux remained with a smaller camera, taking pictures, and Mitaka the Robot, stood off to the side — far enough to not be in any shots, but close enough to intervene if I strayed off track.

Between us was the tape recorder Poe got me. I found out through Hux that he wanted to listen to the interview as proof that I’m using it. I preferred dealing with his shit eating grins than his annoying bitchy moods where he jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst. So, I hoped he was happy.

I pressed play and record at once. I saw the tape turning and the red light glow. It was recording. Thirty minutes on each side. One hour in total.

Here we go.

“ So, I want to thank you for taking the time out with us today.” I started with a small smile. Just enough to where I did not come off like a complete hard ass. “ Really appreciate it.”

She tucked a few lose strands of hair behind her ear, “ Same. Thank you for having me.”

I could hear Hux’s camera fluttering as he took pictures of Rey and I. It was distracting but I needed the photos. I needed Rey the Person in my piece; not the model.

“ Let’s begin. How are you feeling today?”

“ Um, good. I enjoyed working with you all.” She flashed a smile. I couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or not.

“ You did amazing.” She thanked me but I continued, “ So why modeling? What attracted you to this whole thing? You don’t look like the type of girl who would first jump into something like this.”

“ Well,” Rey crossed her arms over her chest and sat up. A power move, even though she was still smiling as sweetly as before. “ I’ve always wanted to do this. Ever since I was a child, I would look at the magazines with Twiggy on the covers and dream to be her.”

I quickly glanced at her keeper. He was watching us like a vulture flying over a dead carcass. I’m sure he was waiting for the moment to jump in and end this interview.

I’m smarter than him, though. I get what I want.

She crossed her legs and leaned back in the chair.

“ Twiggy inspired you?”

“ Yes.”

“ I’m not too familiar with models but I remember she was known for her androgyny. I used to see her everywhere as a kid.”

“ Yes. I was a tomboy growing up but seeing her made me feel pretty. I didn’t need to be curvy to be pretty.”

I mean, I guess that could be a reason to be a model.

“ So you’re saying you had self esteem issues as a child?”

“ No, I had self esteem. I just didn’t feel pretty. Difference.”

Before I had the opportunity to open my mouth, she immediately pounced on the attack, “ I’m sure you’ve felt the same way, right, Ben? You’re a cute guy — nice face, beautiful hair, nicely shaped lips.”

I didn’t know what to say. I could not tell if she was being serious or not. She leaned forward, into my personal space, and reached for my shirt. I immediately froze. It was like an instant reaction that I could not control. Like a defense mechanism was activated.

And she _knew_ this. I did not know how that was possible — we had only spoken to each other for less than ten minutes and yet it was like she had me all figured out. As if her whole deal was to walk into rooms and figure out who was the weakest one occupying it. I had underestimated her.

She smiled as she tugged lightly on my black polo, “ Clean you up a bit, get you out of those terrible, terrible jeans and shirt and you’d make a great model.” She let go. “ Isn’t that what it’s all about, Ben? Modeling is about feeling good. Its like a high without ever needing to take a drug. I do it because it makes me feel good.”

Check. Mate.

I chuckled to myself as I wrote some observations down in my notebook. The page was already half filled from my observations on the shoot.

“ I don’t think modeling is for me. Thanks, though.” I said as I wrote down, _despite the amateurish appearance, the girl is quite the veteran._ I looked up at her, continuing with my plan of attack, “ What is it that you hate about modeling?”

“ What is there to hate when you have the world at your fingertips?”

“ So you’re saying there’s nothing you don’t like about the industry?” I laughed , “ Bullshit.”

“ I get to wear expensive clothes and get paid for looking pretty. What’s there not to love?”

I remembered that answer. She had said it before in the interview from a few months ago. All these answers she was giving me were answers she has probably given before. This girl was not being honest with me — she was just putting on another performance full of cheeky grins, sly smirks, and an oozing overconfidence that came off like a cheap fake fur coat. Underneath the makeup, she really was not in control. I looked at Mitaka again.

He was the one in control.

I switched up my line of questions. I lined the bait, I made the cast, and I lured her into a conversation. There was no way she could recite those prepared answers now.

“ Like food?”

She raised an eyebrow, “ Of course.”

“ What’s your opinion on that new place in Hell’s Kitchen?”

Rey looked at Mitaka. Hun. Interesting. I watched as the two had some sort of silent conversation between each other. She looked back at me and shrugged her shoulders.

“ I never heard of it.”

“ Oh, come on. Everyone has heard of it. It’s been in the papers around town. It’s ran by, oh, what’s his name…” I snapped my fingers, trying to goad her into answering, but she didn’t bite, “ Flay…. Flay….Todd! Todd Flay. That’s it.”

“ I’ve seriously never heard of it. I’ve been busy out of the country the past few weeks so I wouldn’t know anything about a French restaurant.”

“ Ah, okay.” I wrote more stuff down. “ Okay, okay. I don’t really care much for the place. Went there and had the worst duck in my life.”

“ Really? I’m not a fan of it myself.”

“ Ah, so what would you eat then?”

“ A nice burger.” She leaned forward and stretched as she said, “ I like to keep things simple.”

She managed to whip it back to her court. She was difficult to crack.

“ We have five more minutes before we need to leave for your next engagement, Miss Niima.” Mitaka said in a clipped monotone. Rey nodded.

“ Looks like our time is running out.”

Saved by the Robot.

* * *

Hux called me a few days later to his studio in the West Village. I had never been there before. He would always show up at the offices with an envelope of photographs. Poe would pick through them as I stood like a set decoration against the wall — completely ignored. Him asking me over was really out of character, but I went anyway.

His studio was simple — a one bedroom apartment converted into a workspace. The front door had several padlocks and a police lock. The living room was painted white with nothing but a black desk and work chair placed exactly dead center against the wall. Spaced meticulously apart were black and white photos in black frames. Six of them.

It was fucking eerie.

The kitchen was covered with a black curtain from ceiling to floor, and if you peaked inside you could see lamps and all sorts of photography equipment crammed inside. The bedroom was a darkroom, the windows completely boarded up and covered with black curtains. I guess if a fire broke out he would die with his art. He seemed like the type of guy who’d want to go out like that — in a spectacle of dramatics.

Fuck.

There was no place to sit. How were there no seats in a studio to sit on?

“ Must you always wear black?” Hux told me as he emerged out of his blackroom with his sleeves rolled up. “ You stick out terribly.”

“ Must you always look like a yuppie on Wall Street?” I counter.

Hux rolled his eyes. It was not my fault he insisted on slicking back his hair and wearing mono colored suits and vests. Maybe that was why he was so miserable, he was always stuck in tight, stuffy clothing all day.

He motioned for me to follow him and I do. I stepped into the dark room illuminated by a red light hanging overhead. There was a table with all sorts of stuff and three trays of some liquids. I guess the stuff photographers use to develop film. Hanging above the table was a clothing line stretching from one end to the other with pictures hanging on clothespins.

Pictures of her.

I walked around the room and followed the line of hanging photographs.

“ These are the photos you had me take of her outside of the photo shoot. Like during makeup and wardrobe and, you know, your disastrous interview.”

“ Thanks.” I mumbled, too caught up in the photos of this girl. Why was she so mesmerizing to me?

“ She’s not that remarkable. There are better models out there, but Snoke owns the industry right now and who am I to judge.”

I turned around the moment he shrugged. I honestly didn’t care about his opinion but he continued to talk as if I do. If he wasn’t so good at what he did I would have punched him a long time ago. Not because of what he said about the girl, but for that annoying fat mouth of his.

The pictures _are_ amazing and I can’t believe the amount at which he took.

“ There’s over thirty.” I went back to the photos. “ … For someone who thinks she’s unremarkable you sure took a lot of photos…”

“ I got trigger happy.”

“ Right…”

“ For a _reason_ , idiot, if you would just look at the damn photos instead of ogling her like some pathetic teenager.” Hux looked up and groans, “ Why are straight men so dumb when it comes to women…”

I ignored the comment on ‘straight men’ and focused on the photos. I didn’t get what he was talking about at first but then things started to stand out. There were shots of her staring off into the distance, as if there was a disconnect somewhere… like she did not want to be there. Some photos were of her not smiling, standing off quietly to herself, the confidence I had witnessed in person gone in the photos. The more photos I looked at the more apparent the truth became.

Rey Niima did not like modeling.

There was a moment captured in black and white of her looking at someone not in the picture, her face etched in questionable worry. The moment I asked for her opinion on that restaurant.

She knew about that restaurant. She _knew_ and she _couldn’t_ talk about it because the Robot told her not to.

This is...

“ This is the real Rey…” I said aloud to myself.

“ He _finally_ realizes why I wasted film on mediocrity.” Hux said with exasperation.

I ignored the comment.

“ I have an idea.”

“ What?” He paused for a moment, then his voice upticks in disbelief, “ You can’t honestly be thinking of using any of these photos in the article. Snoke would _kill_ us.”

“ No, you idiot. I wouldn’t jeopardize our careers that early.” I reached for the photo and pull it off the line. My thumb rolls over her face. “ A series of articles following this girl. Slowly exposing her truth like peeling the layers of an onion.”

Hux stood next to me. He took the photo from my hands and looked at it.

“ You’re going to destroy her career.” He looked at me. “ You do know that, right?”

“ I like to think of it as an intervention.”

He chuckled with a shake of his head, “ Intervention? Ha! You’re a sick, sad man, Ben Solo. You and I both know you hate this industry. You take pleasure in destroying people with words.”

I took the photo back, but he continued on. I thought he was actually enjoying this twisted prospect of ruining her career, “ I’ll help. One less mediocrity in the business to worry about.”

With the red glow of the room against the darkness, Hux’s fucked up deviousness made it feel like we were concocting an evil plan to burn down a village of innocents. And, perhaps maybe we were. Maybe we were two villains in a movie only looking out for ourselves, as we stood in a dark room with nothing more than a dull red light to illuminate everything in a bloody hue. I didn’t have to do this. I could have just walk away and left this girl alone and move on with my life.

But as I looked at that red illuminated photograph of her silently asking the Robot a question, the only thing I wanted to do was expose her for what she truly was.

A caged bird.

And maybe it would set her free.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an early update because i am out on a business trip! enjoy!


	3. part i : chapter iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mind the tags

**part i : chapter iii**

“ Wow, the rumors are true, she does have a nice pair of tits.”

The first thing I heard that morning came from the mouth of the thirty-four year old Poe Dameron, editor of lifestyle and fashion at _Vanity Fair_ , and was about Rey Niima’s breasts over eggs, toast, and orange juice. If this were any other cafe in any other part of America, witnessing a man in a suit flipping through suggestive photos of a woman out in the open would have been looked down upon. But not here, not in New York, where something like that seemed more like a show-of-proof of how much of an alpha male he was amongst the pack of yuppies that congregated in places like this.

We were surrounded by yuppies having brunch in this downtown cafe. All young, all in suits with paisley ties and matching socks, with clean cut hair and an overuse of hairspray. Even Poe and Hux blended in seamlessly with the look — I sorted of fitted in with my navy colored windowpane patterned dress shirt and hastily put on black tie. My hair was still a mess of rebellious loose curls that I refused to cut or gel back, though, a clear sign of my obvious rebellion to the stereotype plaguing my generation.

They were all talking over each other, as if it was a competition in comparing dick sizes. Except, their dicks were stock trades, with those overpriced cellular phones attached to their ears. It was not as if the office was enough, technology had evolved to now allow them to take the conversations anywhere. The guy in the booth behind me was making it a point to loudly brag about his brand-new Porsche and all the hot chicks he managed to fuck down in Miami on a business trip. Greed was the object of the game and I’m sure they all had a framed photo of Reagan sitting in their offices too.

The two in front of me. Those two were different. Poe kept a framed photo of Judy Garland on his wall and the redhead next to him kept a secret portfolio in his little black desk at his studio. A portfolio full of naked men in various … _interesting…_ poses that he never shown me. I just happened to stumble over it in pure happenstance.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make was that Poe was trying too hard to sell me on something that I already knew was not true. But I wasn’t there to dissect his personal life, we were there to discuss the photoshoot and interview.

We could have done this in his office but Poe _insisted_ we have a working brunch downtown in the Financial District, because, as he told me: Why the fuck not? Company’s paying.

“ They’re average at best.” Hux said dryly before sipping from his mimosa. “ She’s _only_ twenty, after all.”

“ The perfect age.”

“ You sound like a lecherous old man.”

“ I’m not old. I’m thirty-four.”

Another sip, “ Old man.”

Poe looked at Hux with an expressionless face, “ Shut up, Hugs.”

“ My name is _Hux_ you littl—”

I cleared my throat loudly. The two of them looked at me and I sighed as I crossed my arms over my chest.

“ I really don’t care to bear witness to _this_ so can we please get back to the meeting. About the girl.” I said.

I just wanted to get to my pitch and see my way out the door. Mister Porche was becoming increasingly louder with each laugh, and with each laugh he managed to become more annoying than I thought was humanly possible.

Poe went through the eight by ten inch photos — all in color and of really amazing quality. I gotta respect the guy for his talent; Hux knew how to work a camera. Whatever I saw on that day at that abandoned factory did not compare to what was on those glossy prints.

The eye makeup brought out the hazel in her eyes to an almost striking degree. The red of her lips were tantalizing. The lighting work by that poor, starving intern brought out all of her perfections in an alluring way. I finally understood why she was on the rise — she was absolutely photogenic.

And Hux knew this. I could tell he loved hearing Poe gush over the photos by the smile on his face. He may talk all that shit about the girl but he understood her talent and completely exploited it in his work. Judging by the gleam in his blue eyes, he wanted to work with her again, yet at the same time he wanted to destroy her career.

People like him were dangerous. They found opportunities and exploited them to their benefit, discarding the rest.

Poe took out the last shot and whistled.

“ I _like_ this one.” He says as he holds it out in front of him. “ This is going on the cover.”

I don’t even need to ask him to show me the photo because he holds it front of him, the image facing me. Yeah, that definitely is the cover shot. She’s wearing the leather jacket, holding it close to her body with both hands, but enough to showcase her cleavage. Her hair falls around her in loose, teased curls around her round face and she’s staring into the camera with a look that demanded your attention. If it wasn’t for the high waistline of her jeans, you would have thought she was standing there next to that iron pillar naked.

“ Don’t you agree, Ben?” Poe asked me with an excited grin.

I wiped my hands on a napkin before I took the photo from him. I looked at it and then I thought of the other photos, the ones that were hanging in Hux’s dark room. The real Rey Niima.

“ Yeah, yeah.” I said eventually after a few moments. I gave him the photo back. “ That’s the one for the cover.”

Poe slapped it for good measure and stuck it back in the envelope. He dropped it unceremoniously in the space between him and the barrier wall separating the booths next to us. Then, he jumped into the next order of business, “ Hux told me you have a proposal for an article.”

“ Yeah, during the assignment I had Hux take some photos of Rey in the down time between takes and during the interview. The idea was to include them in the article but then we noticed something off about the photos.”

“ What do you mean by off?”

I looked at Hux, giving him a non-verbal signal to pull out the second envelope of photos. He took the envelope out of his briefcase and gave it over to Poe.

“ I don’t think you’ll notice it at first,” I said as I watch Poe go through the black and white photographs, “ But there’s something deeper about that girl. I noticed that her agency has been pushing this narrative that she’s this bubbly girl next door that can take some really good photographs, but… I don’t think that’s the case.”

Poe pulled out a photo and looks at it. I don’t know which one it was, but he examined the picture, his eyebrows furrowed together in thought.

“ We can’t use these in the magazine.” He says.

“ I know. Hux expressed that very clearly to me.”

“ So what do you want me to do with these photos?”

It was a matter-of-fact question as he slipped the photograph he was holding back in its envelope. The one thing about Poe, outside of his boisterous demeanor and flippant attitude about rules and order, was that when he has zero interest in something, he immediately shuts down. The smile falls from his face, he looks at you with his hooded eyes as if you’re wasting his time, and usually the next follow up would be exactly that: You’re wasting my time.

Even though I vehemently despised the yuppie approach to business and life, I knew how it worked. I didn’t go to Dartmouth University just to not pick up the tools of the trade. It was pounded into you by the business majors, by the career center counselors, and by literally everyone that wanted to make sure that their graduates came out working for Fortune 500 companies.

Before I realized how much of a shithole the lifestyle was, I was just another greedy asshole coming out of university with too much of my parents’ money and a bunch of arrogance to match.

So, I leaned back in the booth and crossed my arms. I even smiled a bit for him. I could play his game.

“ You want issues to sell, right?”

“ Of course, Ben.”

“ Then let me write a series of articles following the career of this girl. About six articles diving deeper into _who_ and _what_ she is. You say she’s one of the most popular it-girls of the decade, right? So why not capitalize on that and secure an exclusive right to publish a series focused only on Rey Niima? The teenagers want to be her, the men want to fuck her — self evident by all this talk about her breasts — and everyone in the industry wants to use her.

“ She’s more than a pretty face, Poe. Look at those photos. Tell me you don’t think I’m lying here.”

Poe looked at the envelope sitting between his and Hux’s plate of food.

A moment, then, “ Nah. Nice pitch. You’ve finally decided to use that Dartmouth education Holdo bragged about on the pitch. Pretty impressive, I knew I made the right decision hiring you.” My left eye twitched. “... But I’m not going to jeopardize this magazine’s relationship with Jonathan Snoke.”

“ This is a gold mine in potential sales.” I stressed.

“ Why would I green light an assignment where you can potentially ruin this girl’s career? _Vanity Fair_ writes fluff pieces about egotistical actors with photographs to that boost their fucking egos. Sometimes we act like we care about politics but in reality, we’re useless trash that sits in the waiting room of a doctor’s office.” He finished his beer, sat up in his chair, and then continued with his rant, “ You want to know what magazine doesn’t sit on the table in a doctor’s office waiting room? People magazine. Those shit magazines are on the racks at the checkout stand and are worth less than the toilet paper I use to wipe my ass with.  We’re _not_ a shit publication. _Remember that_ , Solo.”

Well, I definitely fucked that one up. I underestimated his appreciation for the magazine. Based off of our interactions, I honestly thought that the guy didn’t give a flying shit about what he put out there in that magazine. Who would have thought?

I sat up and rubbed my chin. How in the hell could I have flipped this into something that would benefit Poe fucking Dameron? I looked at Hux. That squirrelly pale skinned queen definitely wanted to do this because he’s an evil, rich bastard with no soul. Whatever the reason, there was a benefit for him to want to do this project. So that’s one down, but Poe… why would he… There had to be a reason to why —

— Oh.

 _Oh_.

Hux was leaning into Poe, his hand slipping underneath the table and his lips against his ear, with his other hand cupped against his mouth. To anyone else in this pub, it would look like Hux was just whispering something to a business partner from the waist up. But I see his arm moving between them and I see Poe’s expression change from being offended at my offer to looking interested at whatever Hux was ‘offering’. Hux pulled away and Poe looked at him for a few brief seconds, words unspoken, before the spell broke and the two of them were looking at me as if what just happened _did not_ happen.

I knew Hux was one, but Poe? He always came off like a ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’am’, type of asshole. Every conversation we always had included some yuppie-typical talk about sleeping with ‘hot chicks’ with ‘big tits’ and bleach blonde hair that he meets at the club. He just oozed so much masculinity that I never imagined that he was, well, a homo.

I could be just over thinking things, too. Hux could have just been rubbing his own thigh or something.

Yeah, that was it. No homo in a bar full of ultra-conservative, Reagan loving men would _ever_ make such a blatant move in public. Not when everyone was freaking out and thought that breathing the same air that a homo was breathing will give them AIDS. The media was pushing the narrative – close proximity was a death sentence waiting to happen.

Whatever. All I knew was that Poe looked interested again and Hux looked pleased and that’s all that honestly mattered.

“ Alright. If this magazine sells.. And I mean _fucking_ _sells_ , I’ll let you have your monthly serial.” He lifted a finger in the air to make his point. “ But _only_ if the issue sells.”

I looked at Hux and he mouthed at me something along the lines of, ‘ You owe me ‘.

I guess I did.

Damnit.

After Poe paid the bill with an American Express Business card with Conde Nast listed as the card holder and we’re outside of the pub, Poe reminded us that the magazine better sell. He patted the envelope full of photos for emphasis and tucked it underneath his arm before hailing a taxi and getting inside. The yellow cab pulled off into the mess of traffic along Broadway, and Hux stood next to me with his hands in the pocket of his jacket and a stupid smirk on his face.

“ How’d you do it?” I asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Not, really, no. But he was pretty adamant against the idea.”

“It’s none of your business, Ben. Just be glad I got us what we wanted.”

Hux disappeared into the fray of the crowd.

For the briefest moment, I actually thought he was an alright guy. Then I remembered what he intended to do with Rey and the thought immediately left my mind.

Hux would always be a manipulative asshole in an expensive suit.

* * *

_You might have seen her face on billboards and magazine ads. A young round face with almond shaped eyes and a warm smile beckoning to buy some high end product. She’s everywhere and even if you don’t know her name, you definitely know who she is. Within the last year, Rey Niima has appeared in New York and Paris Fashion week; walking in over a thirty shows, all of them high and in demand fashion designers. She’s signed to a $150,000 contract with Louis Vuitton, and is Big in Japan with multiple product endorsement contracts._

_At first glance, she’s mediocre. An average face that doesn’t stand out among the crowd of faces in this bustling city. There’s not a shortage of young, skinny brunettes with a slightly above average height, so why is it that the five foot seven Rey Niima is such a rising superstar in the modeling world? What makes her so captivating to fashion houses like Versace and Chanel? That’s what I came here to find out — what was Rey Niima’s secret._

_She walks into the photo shoot with an no-frills appearance and the aura of someone who isn’t a celebrity. With a energetic bounce to her step, she waltzes in and lights up the room with a bright smile and an infectious energy, just like any young twenty-something year old fresh to the city. She’s respectful and courteous to everyone in the room and makes sure to shake everyone’s hand. But, there still wasn’t anything there that screamed a world famous model._

_It wasn’t until the dress was replaced with expensive jeans and leather jackets that the simple Niima had transformed into the model in the demand at the first snap of the Nikon camera in the photographers hands._

I’ve read this article at least five times since I picked up the printed issue off of a newsstand outside of the Condé Nast headquarters. There on the cover was that picture of Rey, next to her face in bold white letters: Rey Niima and the Storm She’s Creating in Fashion.

I didn’t come up with the title. Poe did. I remember how tickled he was when he came up with it in his office after reviewing my editorial. His enthusiasms reminded me of a Hollywood producer at times; all I can do is nod with a forced smile and an inward cringe.

“ Mister Solo, can you please refrain from sitting on the fire escape?”

I looked over the escape and see my neighbor’s head poking from the window on the floor below me. I looked at him, unfazed by his request. This was not the first time he had done something like this. The tall blonde with thick round glasses thought it was his right to police the building and make sure all of us residents were following the rules.

“ Get your lanky ass back in this apartment and stop telling the neighbors what to do, you fucking dumbass!”

Ah, the roommate. The other reason why I never pay the other one any mind was because the shorter, stockier one usually jumped in to chew him out.

The blonde looked behind him, “ I swear, Artoo, your vulgar language and hot temper is absolutely unbearable to deal with!”

“ Me? Unbearable?! You’re the stuck up Brit thinking you own the goddamn building! My apartment! My rules!”

I heard the blonde yelp as he was dragged back inside the apartment from his shirt. The window slammed shut but the arguing continued between the two, muffled behind the brick walls.

Cee Threepio was Artoo DeTeau’s neurotic cousin from England and had been living with him for the last year or two on a job assignment, or whatever. Artoo was a born and raised New Yorker with a short temper and a loud mouth who worked as a mechanic. I did not know how that all worked out, but everyone in this building had lost their patience with the cousin.

I just ignore them, if I can.

_When asked about how she felt about modeling, Niima gives off a confident smile and told me, “ Modeling is about feeling good. It’s like a high without ever needing to take a drug. I do it because it makes me feel good “_

_She’s candid and honest. There’s no mistake that she lives what she does and when she stands in front of the camera, it shows._

Poe didn’t like the original piece I wrote. I was too… pessimistic. He made me rewrite chunks of it and this particular paragraph was one of them. He told me that it didn’t matter what I thought or how I interpreted her body language. I needed to follow the brand the First Order cultivated for her.

I ended up writing a fiction piece that was barely two pages in length.

I skipped to the end: _Rey shakes my hand with a bright smile once the interview is done. Flanked to her left is her manager, and he reminds us of her busy schedule and her next itinerary. As he continues to talk to us, I can see Rey become slightly bristled by hearing the tedious schedule being repeated aloud. She’s smiling but there’s a tired light behind those hazel eyes that have catapulted her on to the international stage._

_Rey Niima is a hard worker. Confident. Determined. And maybe one day she’ll have a moment to finally breath, but until then, she has to fly to Los Angeles for a commercial taping and then from there, off to Las Vegas for a casino opening. All within the next forty-eight hours._

_Perhaps her appeal to the industry is because she just don’t know when to stop. The passion that keeps her going. So she quietly will stand there with a smile on her face and a storm behind those eyes with a conflict over what she wants and what she needs._

_“ Good bye,” She told me with a laugh, and the light returns to her eyes, “ Hope to see you around sometime.”_

_She follows her manager’s lead and out the building to continue her non-stop journey with that same bounce to her step._

Those words were the only bits of truth I was allowed to keep. I wonder what will be the reaction from the infamous Jonathan Snoke. Will he bark and demand we retract the article or will he shower us with praise and admiration?

I haven’t heard anything from Poe and Hux has gone radio silent. I’m used to Hux going radio silent after an assignment together but Poe usually kept me updated on the response for my work after publication. Either the restaurant appreciated the work or I’m hereby banned for life for my scathing, inaccurate review on the shit duck.

You’re welcome, Todd.

“ I will not allow myself to be under this abuse any longer!” I heard Threepio yell from the street below. I look down, and I saw the awkward blonde storming out of the apartment with an overstuffed suitcase. Artoo was right on his heels.

“ Grow a pair!” Artoo yelled. He’s so short next to his cousin, the two of them looked like the younger versions of Louie and Jim from _Taxi_.

I put my arm on the railing and rested my head, watching with amusement at this ridiculous argument on display for all of Washington Heights.

“ I did not come all the way here for this! T-taxi!” His brown suit was one size too small for his frame and he looked like he was about to have a nervous breakdown as he paced in circles in front of the building.

Artoo reached for his suitcase and yanked it. “ Your mother will kill me if you run out there…!”

“ Let go!”

“ No you!”

It was a tug of war. Back and forth. Back and forth. Then, the handle broke and the suitcase flew open. Clothes went up in the air in a confetti like explosion. The neighborhood kids laughed at them. The adults shook their heads. The super ran outside and berated them for their foolishness.

* * *

It was two o’clock in the morning when I finally got a call from Poe. Nearly two weeks after the issue hit the newsstands. I fell out of my bed at the sound of my phone and groaned from the impact onto the hardwood floor.

I slowly got up and picked up the receiver, “ Yes?”

“ So—lo—“ I heard Poe sing. Goddamnit, he’s wasted. He was drunk calling me at two in the goddamn morning. I could hear a bunch noise in the background. He must have been at a party.

“ Are you… _drunk_?”

“ No, no, no! I swear to drunk I’ll not god!”

There was a giggle. A fucking _giggle_. He was so fucking drunk.

“ I’m hanging up.”

“ Nononononono. Don’t hang up. I have some goooood news for youuu!”

I sighed, “ Indulge me.”

“ It sold! It sold a fucking _shit ton_! Best selling issue to date! I would have told you sooner but I wanted to seal the deal with Snoke _before_ I told you the good news!”

Oh, well. I guess I was happy. I would have preferred that he’d tell me this at a more reasonable time, like, I didn’t know — nine in the morning.

“ Oh. Okay.”

“ I expected a bit more pep!”

“ I don’t do… pep.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “ Do you have _any_ idea what time it is?”

There was a few seconds of silence on the other line before I hear a loud cheer in the background. Where the fuck is this guy?

“ Ten. No. Nine. No? Waitwaitwait! Eight?”

“ Good night, Poe.”

I hung up.

Two weeks later I was on a plane to L.A. to see Rey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i mention slow burn? yeah, this fic is a.... s l o w b u r n. 
> 
> thanks for the kudos and comments! i truly appreciate it! i might change the schedule from once a month to every two weeks. anyway, till next chapter!


	4. part i : chapter iv

**part i : chapter iv**

I knew he was old. I know he was rich. I knew he has been managing models for decades. But I don’t know _who_ Jonathan Snoke was. Never heard of him until a few weeks ago when Poe, in all his high energy, boasted about how he managed the land the deal of the century. He did not do interviews. He was rarely seen in public. If there were pictures floating around, they were usually of him when he was young. Extremely tall, unusually lanky, with a big forehead and a long face. Not the guy you would have expected to run one of the world’s most influential modeling agencies, but then again there’s a reason why food critics aren’t chefs.

Since following Rey on this assignment, I’ve been reminded of Snoke’s existence more times than I could count. From the photographers that gush over his eye for talent to the Robot himself, reminding me of what I can and cannot do whenever Rey blesses me with her presence, as it being commands from God himself. The man was omnipresent, and I was nothing more than an invader in his church of idol worship. Even Rey could not contain her need to remind me of how grateful she was to this old man.

“ He really has done a lot for me. Took me in, trained me, gave me the opportunity to grow and flourish... be successful. Mister Snoke is really a wonderful and great man.”

“ Right.”

Rey was sitting in front of me in a low-cut black blouse and a long flowing white skirt. Her legs were crossed, revealing the slit that exposed her long legs and black stiletto heels. We were in Los Angeles, having been for the last week or so, but this was the second official time slot allotted to me to actually interview her.

My time with her was tightly controlled. They restricted me like a child in a store — look, but don’t touch. I could greet her and talk briefly in passing, but any conversation must be on the record and in the presence of Mitaka, the Robot. Any attempt I’ve made in contacting her outside of the set ‘rules’ had been met with opposition and resistance. If the Robot thought we were spending too much time together, he would quickly slip in to remind Rey of the next item on her ridiculously busy schedule.

Jonathan Snoke may have green lit this series on his pet canary, but he was controlling every aspect of the interviews. I wouldn’t doubt that sooner or later they were going to be asking me to turn in my questions in advance for approval.

Mitaka was standing beside us, within ear shot. I took a cheese cube from my paper plate and ate it. There was currently a break from the photoshoot and the crew were out on lunch. Everything was catered and my plate was a pathetic display of cheddar cheese, saltines, and baby carrots because no one thought it was necessary to order the journalist a lunch.

I noticed that Rey was not eating anything. I picked up my paper plate and offered the food on it to her.

“ Cheese? Cracker? Carrot?”

She shook her head and laughed, “ No. I’m good. I had a big breakfast.”

“ You sure?” I shook the plate a bit. “ Last offer...”

I heard her stomach rumble and saw her cheeks redden from the embarrassment. I grinned and held the plate out even further.

“ That sounds like a girl who’d enjoy some cheddar cheese on a cracker.”

Rey chewed her lower lip in thought, then took two cheese cubes off of my plate. She quickly plopped them in her mouth and closed her eyes with a satisfied smile.

“ I love cheese...” She moaned. “ I usually try to avoid it because of reasons but sometimes I sneak some. It’s like sex in my mouth.”

I chuckled. “ I think sex is a bit more exciting than sharp cheddar.”

“ Not when you can’t eat it whenever you w—When you’re too busy to eat it all the time.”

Okay. That was an interesting verbal flip. I looked at the Robot and I could see him frowning at us so obviously I’ve over stepped myself today and will probably hear from him later. I don’t focus on him for too long though. There was a pretty girl sitting in front of me enjoying cheese cubes. I let myself enjoy the view. I took a baby carrot and bit into it.

I immediately spat it out.

“ I don’t like uncooked carrots.”

“ And you were a food critic?”

“ Not by choice.” I muttered. I scooted my chair close to hers and pulled the plate between us. “ There’s too much cheese here and I can’t possibly eat this all. And,” I looked at my wrist watch. “ We have another ten minutes to kill before you go do your thing, so care to join me for some cheese and crackers?”

Rey grinned and her button nose scrunched up. It was the cutest thing I had seen in a while.

“ I don’t do white cheddar. Just yellow.” She told me as she plucked the yellow cubes off my plate and into her hand.

“ I prefer the white cheddar, so I think we have a pretty good compromise going on here.”

As Rey ate the cheese, the Robot stalked over to our table. He cleared his throat and looked at Rey. She looked up at him and the bright smile she had on her face just moments before completely morphed into one of guilt.

“ I got word that they need you in makeup.” He said stiffly. “ We can finish this interview another time.”

He looked at me. I looked back. I was not going to back down — not to this guy at least. Rey took my hand and turns it over to drop the remaining three cubes into my palm.

“ They’re really good. You might have a changed perspective.”

Rey got up and I could not believe how much taller she was next to the Robot in those heels. And yet, at the same time, this little rat had complete and total control over her. I was sure she could take him out of his misery if she wanted to.

A slap or a punch. Bam. Problem solved.

There was more involved here though. Things were never that easy. They just make it look easy.

I ate one of the three cheese cubes as I watched her disappear off into the photo studio across the hall. There was no change in the flavor; I still preferred the white cheddar...

… But for some reason the yellow tasted better this time around.

I heard a snap and looked over at the source: the tape recorder. It stopped recording on its own. The tape must have run out. I reached for it, just to rewind the cassette and record over this wasteful conversation we just had.

But my hand froze. On second thought, I decided that I’d keep it.

It was the only recording I had of her real laugh.

* * *

New York City was not a place that I thought fondly of, but when I was far away from its dirty concrete and dark iron, I got homesick. Not because I missed the smell of urine or subways covered completely in graffiti, but because of the familiarity of the city. I liked it when I had control over my situation. Stability granted that control. Traveling from place to place with nothing but a suitcase and my notes is messed that up.

But despite being back ‘home’, after two weeks in Los Angeles, I still felt like a fish out of water.

I had absolutely no idea of what’s going on in this conference room at this hotel. Maybe I was jet lagged. We had come straight here after the red eye flight from California, and there wasn’t a moment to actually breathe and refresh from all the traveling. Yeah, I was still jetlagged. My internal clock still thought that it was three hours behind the current time. My body wanted to go back to sleep, but my mind was running at a million miles a minute.

I was by the true definition of the word, exhausted. The Robot did not care though. He had made it a point to keep Rey updated on the day’s events in the limousine ride from JFK International Airport to our arrival at the hotel.

If he could see the dark circles under her eyes and the half-hearted nods she gave as she stared outside the window, and still continued on reciting the schedule, then he was ignoring her fatigue on purpose.

For some reason I was not on the schedule, but I still had to be there. According to my schedule, this was the final day of the first two weeks of this assignment. I was supposed to get that final interview and then fuck off back to my apartment where I had planned on sleeping in my bed for the next three days. I was _positive_ I had one more interview with her, but when I asked, Mitaka told me there was no time today. I apparently got everything I needed from her.

I thought he was tightening the leash.

The room was filled with journalists from various magazines. Not all high fashion, some were smaller entertainment magazines, and some were newspapers. They all had their own photographers, but each picture they got of her was the same: a bright smile in an oversized blue sweater that hung off of one shoulder and black leggings. Her long hair was pulled up in a teased ponytail and her makeup was tasteful, enough to hide the dark circles under her eyes. Enough to hide the fatigue.

It was the girl next door look. It told them that this girl was marketable to everyone. Profitable. It was another power grab by Snoke’s agency to guarantee their control on the industry.

I opened my notebook and jotted all of this down. I doubted I would be able to include this in the first article, but it was going to be worth something down the road. I was sure of it.

“ You had asked me why you’re not on the schedule today, it’s because I decided that it would be in Miss Niima’s best interest if you submitted your questions to me in advance, like all the other journalists here today.”

I looked up from my seated position in corner of the conference room, away from murder of crow-like journalists, swarming around Rey for her opinions on Madonna and Molly Ringwald. Mitaka looked down at me with a steely look as he gripped the planner at his side. His grey suit looked ill fitted, as if the shoulder pads of his sports jacket were trying to swallow him whole.

I blinked and raised an eyebrow, “ I did not hear anything about that from my team.”

“ I just implemented the rule this morning. I had our agency’s secretary fax over the new guidelines to Mister Dameron before we took off this morning.”

“ Ah.” I looked at Rey; her tenacity was impressive.

“ Mister Solo, if you could please take this seriously, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“ Hmm.”

I closed my notebook and put my pen behind my ear, making sure that my hair keeps them covered. I did not really care about much of anything, and Hux was definitely right about that, but I did care about my ears. I cared enough to make sure that my hair was long enough to cover them. Years of childhood bullying could cause a guy to have some stupid self-conscious insecurities. It was not an attempt at rebelling against the yuppie life, even though Dameron always insisted that it was.

I carded my fingers through my hair. I tugged on a few stubborn locks that twisted in whatever direction they saw fit in an attempt to force them back into some order.

“ Are you even listening to me?” The Robot huffed, “ If you continue to try and subvert the clauses in the agreement between the First Order and your company, I will personally make sure to have Mister Snoke replace you with someone more competent in documenting Miss Niima’s work.”

“ I am not listening, because I don’t care.” I looked at him. I was not smiling. “ I will get my story, whether you like it or not.”

“ I will see to it that you are promptly removed from the premises.”

I carded my fingers one last time, “ I... don’t think that’s a good idea. Because, you see, Mister Snoke — he requested that I be on this assignment. The agreement was that I, Ben Solo, document the work of your client, Rey Niima, for the next few months. I don’t need to run anything through you, Mister...”

“ Mitaka.” He gritted through his teeth.

“ Mister Mitaka.”

“ I have no confirmation on that.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “ Might as well get that confirmation personally yourself, then.”

“ Stay away from her,” he stiffly said. “ Sit here. Go make yourself useful at the hotel bar. But stay away from _her_ until I can confirm your claims.”

The Robot glared at me. He looked like my mother’s late Pomeranian; small, big eyed, and all bark but zero bite. I got up from the chair and made do on his demand — I decided to make myself useful at the hotel bar and get a club soda with a lime, but not before I grabbed Rey’s attention with a wave of my hand in her direction. She noticed it, smiled back with a small wave of her own, and quickly returned focused on the journalist interviewing her.

The thing that the Robot did not realize was that I had got what I wanted long before he even had the chance to make that personal phone call.

* * *

“ Are you a fucking idiot or are you stupid?” Poe asked me. I know it’s a rhetorical question but he’s sitting in front of me and looked as if he was expecting an answer.

My jaw moved, but I did not say anything. I left the question hanging in the air of his office. I heard the leather of the seat behind me squeak from Hux’s awkward shuffling. It sounded louder than it should have; must have been the mood in the room that was amplifying the awkward noises such as the ticking second hand of the clock on Poe’s desk and the muted muffles from the fashion and lifestyle department on other side of the door.

“ I think he’s both.” Hux supplied, despite the fact that no one asked for his opinion.

“ No one asked for your opinion, Hux.” Poe confirmed dryly as he looked over my head at his photographer. His hooded eyes landed back on me. “ I got a call yesterday from a…” He looked down at the Post-it note on his desk, “ Dopheld Mitaka about your behavior during your assignment. Apparently, you decided to say fuck it to the rules and become an investigational journalist?”

“ You and I both know that Mitaka is nothing more than a neurotic lap dog.” I said.

“ A lap dog who’s the personal assistant to Jonathan Snoke, or did you forget?”

“ I did not.”

Poe sat down and leaned back in his work chair, “ So what happened?”

“ He overreacted.” Poe is still frowning. I sigh, “ He’s lying.”

Poe ran his hands down his face with a loud sigh. Hux shifted in his seat again. The clock kept ticking and the muffles continued. I probably should have been concerned about this, but I was not. I knew that this would all end in my favor because Dopheld Mitaka was a dog with no bite. He didn’t tell Snoke a damned thing because Mitaka had no spine to confront his boss with bad news. It was as Hux told me all those weeks ago, Mitaka was nothing more than a guy that wanted to be something by hiding behind names.

“ Jonathan Snoke,” Poe began exasperatedly, “ Is a man that holds his brand higher than anything else in this world. He has sued tabloid magazines for reporting dirt on his talent, had rumors squashed, and has done a lot of dirty shit to make sure he stays on top. If _we_ , meaning _you_ , don’t play by the First Order rule book, _we_ are out of a job.”

“ But… did we not agree that this was supposed to be a series of articles that reveal the true Rey Niima to the world?”

“ I didn’t stay to be so fucking brazen about it, though! There are _rules_ , Ben, to the game. You can’t just do _whatever_ the fuck you did back with your uncle at National Geographic and think that’ll work here. This isn’t anthropology, it’s fucking fashion. Hollywood. The elite. There are boundaries that we must respect in order to avoid being black listed.”

My jaw moved. I’d be lying if I said I was not becoming increasing irritated at that moment. I thought Poe was a bit more inclined to Mitaka’s boy-who-cried-wolf methods of getting what he wanted. If Hux can go on for days about the million plus one reasons why he can’t stand Mitaka, then I was sure Poe understood clearly that this was just some scare tactic.

Poe picked up a sheet of paper that was attached to the yellow Post-it note. He handed it over to me and I took it.

It was that fax Mitaka threatened me with a few days ago during that press junket.

“ All questions must be submitted in advance to Mister Dopheld Mitaka before any interview with Miss Rey Niima. Approved questions will be handed back and are to be the only questions asked during interview.” I looked at Poe with a cocked eyebrow. “ Really?”

“ Yes. Really.”

Hux sighed loudly behind me. I heard the leather squeak as he got up from the seat and walked over to me. I could feel him standing next to me and he did not say a word as he took the sheet of paper from my hand and quietly read the facsimile on the First Order letterhead.

“ He didn’t run this through Snoke,” Hux said matter-of-fact. He looked at the both of us, “ He’s roadblocking the interview to save his ass from any fallout. Snoke doesn’t fax messages, he comes in person. You know this as well as I do, Poe.”

He put the paper down on Poe’s desk.

“ Mitaka is a problem.” Poe said as he looked at the paper. “ You can’t eliminate him from the equation. He has a lot more power and influence than you realize.”

“ We can eliminate him.”

“ How?”

Hux smirked as he steps away from me and moves to sit on the corner of Poe’s desk. Poe gives him a pointed look but Hux ignores him, looking over his shoulder at me. He looked a bit nervous, if not annoyed and I could only guess why.

I didn’t let the thought dwell.

“ Mitaka is only around when the cameras are rolling. We don’t have to interview Rey when she’s on the job.”

Ah. I get it. I guess it took a rat to know a rat.

“ You want me to get close to her and interview her in private.” I said. Hux twisted his body to look at me and smirked.

How did he manage to embody a cheap Bond villain so well, I had no idea. Was it the suit? Nah, everyone wore three piece suits those days. It must have been the accent, you know, the stuffy British one or the fact that he was just an entitled, self serving asshole. Probably, it was the combination of the both.

“ I knew you had it in you, Solo.” He lauded. I rolled my eyes in response.

Poe stood up and crossed his arms. He began to pace back and forth behind his chair as he took Hux’s plan into consideration. Watching these two concoct this plan made it too obvious that there was something a lot deeper going on than what they were letting on. They fed off of each other, building on top of each other’s ideas and creating new, and sometimes, better ideas out of them. They got off on it — the challenge of making the impossible possible.

“ I like this…” Poe said, mostly to himself. “ This… I can work with this.”

“ What makes you think that she won’t go running back to Mitaka?” I asked, because we all knew that he had her wrapped around his tiny finger. Hux turned around to face me completely and laughed out loud.

“ That girl likes you, Solo. She won’t _dare_ say a word.” He smirked, “ Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Poe stopped pacing, “ What do you mean she likes him?”

“ Whenever she sees this poor excuse of a Robert Smith halloween costume gone wrong, her eyes bright up like a kid in a candy store.”

“ Fuck you, Hux.” I grumbled. Really? Robert Smith?

“ You know, Ben, you could really… Work on that whole look of yours.” Poe added, because we all care about what Poe thinks of my choice in clothing.

I stood up and pointed at the two of them, “ Fuck you and fuck you, too. I will do whatever I need to do to get the story that I want to write, but don’t get it twisted in your sick little minds that I’m going to fuck a story out of her. _Some_ people actually like to work with a professional decorum.”

“ No one said anything about fucking a story out of someone,” Hux said nonchalant as he looked at his nails. He looked up at me and tongued his left cheek.

My eye twitched.

* * *

The fifth-floor smelt like piss again. The junkie was passed out in front of his apartment, 5D down the hall from the staircase, with the door half open. I could see the lights from the television reflecting off of the black steel door. I saw the wet stain on his beige Dockers. I had always debated going over there and drag him back inside his place to save him the embarrassment, but I never did bother.

It was none of my business.

As I started my way up the final flight of stairs to my apartment, I heard a door open.

“ I saw your article in that magazine.” Maz Kanata told me as she closed the door to her apartment. She shuffled inside her big black bag for her keys. “ Nice work there, Solo.”

Maz Kanata was a small old woman with large round glasses that seem to encompass half of her face. She was from Guyana and moved here to the States years ago to chase the American dream. Started a business running a swing club in Harlem back during the forties, before moving the business further uptown to Washington Heights twenty years ago. I talked to her occasionally when we usually met in the hallways. She was the only person in this building that I actually felt comfortable expressing myself to on a personal level.

She locked her door and noticed the junkie from 5D, “ You know, the only reason why the Super lets this happen is because his father owns the building.”

“ Hun. He should clean that shit up then.”

“ Yeah. When you’re that rich and rehab isn’t doing the trick, might as well let your kid rot in his own piss and not charge him the rent. Speaking of which, you were gone all last week. What happened? Finally decided to go home and speak to your parents?”

Maz was also the only person that I had spoken to in detail about my family. She cared a great deal about my relationship with them, more so than I actually liked. The little comments about visiting them had grown old in the last two years. I would probably never see them again, but I guess it was the thought that counted.

“ Business trip.”

The junkie groaned as he sat up. There was a mumble about going to the store to pick up some food, but it was completely incoherent. He looked down at his pants and moaned, realizing he let himself go again. Slowly, he got up onto his feet and shuffled back inside his apartment. The door closed and Maz looked at me again.

“ Things working out for you then?”

“ Yeah. Free trip to L.A. and a meal budget of twenty dollars a day.”

“ That’s a lot of cheeseburgers.”

“ McDonalds is from sunny California, after all.”

“ That is very true.”

Maz walked over to me and took my large hand into her smaller, wrinkled ones. I looked down at the smaller woman. She barely reached my hips in height, but she had a strength to her grip that countered the outward appearance of curly grey hair kept inside a black cloche hat with a white ribbon and black overcoat that engulfed her tiny frame.

“ I’ve seen a lot of faces in my lifetime, looked into a lot of eyes, and so I’ve gotten used to knowing what to expect from a person when I first meet them. That girl you’re following around, those eyes belong to someone who’s in a lot of pain. There’s not enough smiling that she can do to hide it. Just… be aware the next time you work with her. She’s a lot more fragile than you think.”

“ You’re the second person to tell me this today.” I said.

Maz smirked, “ You should come by the Takodana and spend that hard earned cash at my bar. ”

She patted my hand a couple of times before descending down the stairs as I ascended to the sixth floor.

When I entered my apartment, I walked over to my desk and tossed my keys on top. I put my hands on my hips as looked at the black and white picture of Rey that I took from Hux — the one from the first interview — pinned to my cork board of notes and postcards. I looked at her face and slowly tilted my head, as if it would help me understand what Maz was going on about earlier. It did not help, but I could see that her smile did not reach her eyes.

Gentle and fragile, hun?

I guess I had to become her friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the comments and kudos. :) its a slow moving story but it'll eventually get there because the reylo finally takes off in the next chapter lol yaaay.


	5. part i : chapter v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lost in translation

**part i : chapter v**

I had no idea what was going on. I usually could grasp ahold of a situation rather quickly, but that was when the primary language in the room was English. Everyone was speaking in Japanese and I had no idea if I should have been standing right there, next to this lightening equipment in this large soundstage, or by the exit door. A few production assistants, or at least that’s who I thought they were, tried to tell me _something_ but all I got out of them was, ‘ No, no, no ‘ and ‘ Please no ‘ as they pointed randomly somewhere.

Fortunately, for Rey she had a translator on set. She did not need to process a foreign language like the rest of us in her entourage.

I was jet lagged and miserable. Two weeks after the trip to Los Angeles, and the subsequent fallout with the Robot in New York, I checked my mailbox to find a large envelope with Conde Nast branding inside. When I opened it up, it was an itinerary and one round trip ticket to Tokyo, with a little handwritten note from Poe demanding that I bring something back as a gift since the tickets weren’t cheap.

The tickets were dated for a departure three days after I got the package. The lack of subtly, let alone the zero concern for my own personal schedule was made very apparent. Poe was right, he could get me to do anything that he wanted me to do. All he needed to do was back me in a corner and leave me with no options, except the nuclear one which he knows I would never pick.

We arrived in the night, or was it the morning? Ah, I did not know. There were no windows in this room except for the bright lights, equipment banging, and the George Michael music playing rather loudly in the background.  It could have been midnight for all I knew, or it could have been noon. The last thing that I had to eat was the rubber they called beef on the flight over and that had to have been over six hours ago.

I needed something to eat once this was all over.

“ The director said he want more cute girl, less model. Cute girl!”

The translator’s accent was thick and jovial and despite her smiling, Rey’s eyebrows furrowed together in confusion at the translated request. Her eyes darted between the older Japanese woman and the young photographer standing in front of them with a camera in his hand. I couldn’t see his expression but given how his hips are cocked to the side with one hand on it, I guess he was getting frustrated at Rey’s output.

The reason we were all here was for an advertising campaign with a Japanese distillery that produced ‘whisky’, the Japanese version of scotch. There was a bottle of whiskey on a black clothed pedestal next to Rey. In her hand was a glass of the drink on the rocks — though it appears as if the ice was actually fake, to prevent condensation. Even though it was now late May, the set had been done up to resemble an evening in fall. There was fake fall foliage everywhere against an orange backdrop. From what was told, this was for an advertising campaign slated for early November this year.

This was the most conservative I had ever seen her dress on a job since I met her nearly two months ago. Most of her photo shoots tried to take advantage of her ‘assets’ under the guise of ‘high fashion’, but here in Japan all they had cared about was the face, it seemed. A brown turtleneck and a black pleated skirt with knee high boots to represent the chill of autumn. Her hair was pulled up into a twist with wisps of curly hair framing her face done up in simple, modest makeup.

Sell liquor and look cute while doing so.

The translator stepped behind the photographer and the photo shoot resumed.

* * *

The liquor company sent one of their English-speaking representatives to escort us around Tokyo for our five-day trip. He was a short guy with slicked back hair, in a black suit, with a briefcase in one hand filled with documents, schedules, and what I assumed were notes about Rey and her interests. He and the Robot did most of the talking, with Rey exhausted in the background waiting for the next item on the schedule.

But now, we were at a restaurant somewhere in Shinjuku, near the hotel that we were staying at, being served a multi course meal of traditional Japanese food in a private section. Rey was seated next to the Robot, while across from her was the company representative. I did not expect to be tagging along, but somehow the guy insisted that I join them much to the Robot’s silent displeasure. 

“ I hope the food is delicious,” Mister Saitou told us as he poured sake into all of our cups. “ This _wagyu_ came from Hyogo Prefecture, one of the best in Japan. We call it Kobe Beef.”

The main course had finally arrived, thinly cut strips of marbled red meat on long plate. A waitress in blue kimono turned on a grill in the center of our table. She rubbed some sort of fat on the hot grill and placed it on a small dish next to it. She quietly left the room, bowing before sliding the door shut. Saitou took his chopsticks and picked up a slice of beef from his plate. He put it on the grill.

“ You grill each piece,” he explained as he prepared the beef, “ Then you take it when its grilled to your like and eat it. Or, you can dip it in sauce. Please, lets eat.”

Mitaka did not hesitate to eat. He lined up his pieces of beef on the grill as he talked vividly about how he always wanted to try Kobe Beef. I looked at my cup of sake. I know the saying is when in Rome, do as the Romans, but I seriously could not drink it. I noticed Rey looking at me and she pointed to her cup.

I looked at it briefly and then raised an eyebrow. She made a drinking motion with her hand and I shook my head. She raised an eyebrow and I just shrugged. I did not need to explain to her why I abstained from alcohol but I enjoyed the silent conversation we’re having with the Robot in the room.

“ Oh, my god. This is so good! This beef is just melting in my mouth!” Mitaka exclaimd passionately with a mouthful of expensive Japanese beef.

Rey rolled her eyes at Mitaka’s reaction and nodded her head over to the closed slider. Was she trying to hint at something? She mouthed something at me, ‘ Want to get out of here?’

Yeah, I’d like to get out of here. I gave her a short nod and she smiled.

“ May I have some water?” Rey asked Saitou. He nodded and made a call for the waitress. Within a couple of minutes, the waitress entered our private room and he ordered something in Japanese. I guess the water. She left again, not before bowing.

“ Why aren’t you eating?” Mitaka asked, pointing his chopsticks at her. She laughed and shook her head.

“ I’m tired. I haven’t been to bed in the last thirty-something odd hours.”

“ Oh, I am sorry. If you would like, I can arrange a transport to take you back to the hotel.” Saitou said. “ I understand if you’re tired after your long trip and today’s activities.”

“ B-but you can’t just leave like that, Miss Nima! Mister Saitou has paid for this very expensive dinner and we are to go to karaoke afterwards!”

The Robot was very insistent. Rey’s smile fell from her face, but Mitaka did not say a thing, he stuffed his mouth with more beef and washed it down with the sake. I got up from the table and wiped my eyes. I felt like a semi-truck had just rolled over my body and for good measure decided to back up over me. I looked at Saitou and clapped my hands together.

“ I am very exhausted and I need to make a call to my editor in New York,” I lied. There was no way I was making an international call to New York on my dime. “ I truly enjoyed tonight’s dinner and I am honored that decided to include me in on this.” I nodded my head in respect to him.

Saitou smiled and quickly stood up, he extended his hand out to me and I took it. “ Don’t mind. It is Japanese hospitality. I will call for transportation to bring you back to hotel.”

We shook hands and Saitou rushed out of the room to arrange that pick up for me. I looked at Rey and she looked at me. We’re back to having that silent conversation where she silently told me something and I somehow got it. She wanted to go with me.

I slightly nodded at the door behind me. It’s okay, Rey, you can leave. This guy can’t make you stay.

Rey chewed on her lower lip, glossy rosy painted lips disappearing behind perfectly white teeth. Then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and got up from the table. Mitaka immediately looked up at her and pointed his glass of sake at her.

“ Miss Niima!” He exclaimed. Rey laughed an apology.

“ I’m too tired to do this, Mitaka. Not tonight. Enjoy my beef for me, okay?”

Mitaka looked at me, no, he was glaring at me. I shrugged my shoulders. What did he expect? That we were gonna run away together in a city that we did not know the local language? We would not get very far, trust me.

I heard the slider open and Saitou stepped back into the room. We turned around and he motioned out into the narrow hallway.

“ The transport will arrive shortly. Please, waitress will show you outside.”

Mitaka was reaching over the grill, grabbing our plates of beef and scraping the slices into his own. He had decided to give us the silent treatment and I could not be more glad for it. Rey expressed her apologies as we left the private booth and followed the small waitress through the maze of narrow hallways, silent conversations hidden behind private rooms, and dim lighting.

Our shoes were waiting at the entrance to the restaurant and we put them on. I turned around and the waitress bowed and said something that I did not quite get before she shuffled back inside. Another waitress appeared from a back room hidden by a curtain. She handed me my bag with a smile and a curtesy nod of her head. She disappeared back behind the curtain.

We were finally alone now.

Rey and me.

Alone, for the first time.

Fuck.

I did not know what to say.

Rey stretched, one arm up in the air as her other hand held it from behind her head. She switched arms and sighed.

“ I thought today was never going to end.” She told me as her hands fell to her side. “ I feel like I’ve been up for two _days_.”

“ I think we have been up for two days.” I said.

Thanks for starting the conversation.

“ So, I’m surprised you’re here.” Rey held her elbows out as she moved her upper body from right to left, stretching out her back. “ They must really want a story, hun.”

“ I can’t say no to a free trip to Japan.” I shrugged.

Rey raised an eyebrow, “ You are definitely not the type I would expect to be on a job like this.”

“ What gives you that impression?”

She stopped stretching and crossed her arms over her chest. “ Well, the fact that you’re always brooding in the corner with a murderous expression kind of gives it away. Usually journalists try to get in everything, but you just stand there looking at me with that old notebook.” Rey cocked her head a bit. “ You know, its actually kind of creepy.”

“ I am not doing it on purpose, I swear.” I scratched my cheek. This was certainly embarrassing. Was I really that intense?

“ Yeah, you are.”

 Fuck. I couldn’t believe I said that out loud.

“ I used to help write for the National Geographic,” I said with a sigh. “ I worked with my uncle. He writes for them and I would join him on assignments and help him with the research and source gathering. There’s a lot of... observation involved.”

“ Research and source gathering isn’t really writing.” Rey remarked with a smirk. “But that would explain all the intensity.”

“ I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult.”

“ It’s whatever you want it to be.”

I looked at her, but I did not know what to follow up with, so I just stayed quiet. Rey did not say anything either, and we were standing in a small lobby on the fifth floor of some building in the middle of Tokyo with nothing but traditional Japanese music playing quietly in the background and the sound of water gently falling over rocks in a display next to us against a mellow red wall. I wanted to say that the whole atmosphere of this lobby was designed to calm the patrons that came in and waited to be served, but I only felt a tension in the air between us that grew increasingly thicker with each passing minute.

There was a window in front of us giving us a view of Shinjuku — it was all bright neon lights, cars crammed into narrow roads, above ground train lines crisscrossing above and below each other, and just a sea of pedestrians getting from one place to another. New York was busy, but Tokyo just seemed to never stop running. There was a desperation behind it’s citizens movements. A need to just get from point A to point B without incident or interaction with anyone around them.

I walked up to the window to get a closer look. I stuck my hands into the pocket of my black slacks and rolled my head to work out a crank in my neck. It popped and I slightly winced from the pressure release. Never again would I take a trip like this again. Next time, Poe would have no choice but to give me a two-week notice, because if he did not, I would break his favorite photographer’s camera again and let him deal with his whining.

“ You don’t have to make a call to New York, don’t you...” Rey said. I did not notice her standing next to me. I looked down at her. She barley hit my shoulder in height.

“ I lied.”

“ You’re not a good liar. You carry your emotions on your face like an open book.”

“ I guess that’s why your manager was angry.”

Rey scoffed, “ He wasn’t angry about you leaving. He was angry that I decided to leave with you.”

“ Kind of figured that, too.”

“ Ah,” She smirked, her eyes never leaving the window, “ So it is true. You two can’t stand each other. Luckily, Snoke likes you so there’s nothing he can do about it.”

I looked back outside, “ Really? I never met him.”

“ Snoke doesn’t need to meet anyone to have an opinion on them. He’s heard enough....”

Well, that was good. I guessed. The Robot was now reduced to a complete non-factor. I carded my fingers through my hair and took a few steps back from the window. Rey turned around to look at me and I stopped myself from letting my mind wander into territory that it should not have been entering. It was not happening.

“ So, if there’s nothing that he can do, why don’t you spend some time with me tomorrow evening? Our schedules are empty so... We can get to know each other, professionally of course.”

“ Mitaka can’t do anything to you but he can do things to me.” She sighed, “ Not physical or anything like that. He can report me back to Snoke and there’s one thing that Snoke doesn’t appreciate and its when his models decide to go rogue.”

“ So you’re telling me that you can’t go?”

“ Yeah. I can’t go with you.”

I did not get it. I thought she... I thought that it didn’t matter what I did. I thought Mitaka was a non-factor so why can’t she just tell him to fuck off and live her life? I pinched the bridge of my nose and close my eyes for a moment. I needed to think of a way to convince her to just leave the idiot behind.

“ What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” I said simply once I dropped my hand from my face and looked at her. She cocked an eyebrow at my comment, and I pressed further. “ More than likely, Suntory guy is going to get Mitaka wasted. Shitfaced. I don’t know much about this country, but based off of what my uncle told me, getting shitfaced here is a _thing._ He will be so fucked tomorrow that you will be the last thing on his mind. One night won’t mess things up with you and him. Just come with me tomorrow so we can get to know each other and really break the ice. Okay?”

Rey looked at me with raised eyebrows and I feel like I just vomited the worst collection of words to be put in an argument, ever. I felt like that kid on my block growing up that decided to ask this girl out to the prom by throwing rocks at her window, ended up breaking the glass, and then was chased down the block by her crazy father in his Ford Pinto. The whole embarrassment of that entire situation replayed over and over in my mind, despite the fact it happened nearly twelve years ago.

She chewed on her lower lip again, then a few seconds later sighed in defeat.

“ Fine. I’ll go.”

I did not think I was smiling but I could feel my face crack into a small, sheepish one. She was smiling too and I thought something had just happened that I did not think was something that would have been easy to walk away from.

“ Great. Well, I’ll uh... How about the lobby. Tomorrow. Seven.”

“ Lobby at seven. That’s fine.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, “ In the movies, this would be the part where I’d walk away, but since we’re kind of riding back together...”

“ You are definitely a peculiar individual, Mister Ben Solo.” She said lightly with a grin.

When the driver finally arrives to pick us up, I could not have been happier to get out of that lobby. I did not like the way my heart was doing flips every time that girl smiled at me.

* * *

Thirteen hours.

I have never slept that much since the summer before my senior year of high school. Back when I didn’t have anything to worry about, except for finally loosing my virginity to the much older Bazine Jones. Long nights spent reading the porn magazines I took from my father’s hidden collection in the garage, trying to study the way the female body looked and worked in a vain attempt to not come off like, well, a virgin. I spent much of the day asleep with The Doors playing on repeat in the background, nursing my chaffed dick from masturbating too much.

When Bazine finally made me a man, I had only managed five and a half thrusts before cuming onto her inner thigh. Two whole minutes. I almost cried from the embarrassment. 

I rolled out of the small and hard hotel bed and hit the ground hard. The impact woke me up from the nightmare of that night in the summer of 1975. It took me a few minutes to remember that I was not in New York, but in a small hotel room in the middle of Tokyo, Japan. The room was drenched in the setting sun, every white surface now a mellow orange. I blinked a few times and rolled onto my side, slowly getting up off the floor and back on the bed. I grabbed my wrist watch off the nightstand and looked at the time.

Fuck, I forgot to change it. It was still set to New York. I slipped it on and look at the analogue clock. 18:34.

Eighteen... eighteen... That was six o’clock in the evening. Oh, man, I had to be downstairs in less than twenty-six minutes. Why did I agree to do this again?

I forced myself up off the bed and dragged my feet into the bathroom. I turned on the light and looked at my reflection. My face was covered in stubble, the beginnings of a mustache rearing its ugly head on my face. I grabbed my razor and shaving cream and removed the obvious signs of two days of no sleep and baths. I took a shower, washed the grim out of my hair, and forced myself to find something wearable in my one suitcase.

As I buttoned up my shirt, I saw the Nikon camera that Hux let me borrow for this trip. There was nothing in the budget, apparently, to send Hux along with me so he begrudgingly gave me one of his ‘cheaper’ SLR cameras. I took the camera once I was finished buttoning my shirt and quickly headed out the hotel room with less than ten minutes to spare.

I finger combed my hair once I was in the lobby, the damp locks curling in all sorts of weird directions. I saw Rey standing by the front desk in jeans and a white t-shirt with her long, permed hair pulled up into a ponytail. She took a brochure into her hand, fliped through it, and put it back — she moved on to the next one and repeated in tandem. I walked up behind her.

“ Boo.” I whispered. She whipped around, her fist up and ready to strike, but then her eyes widened, and she sheepishly brought it back down.

“ Don’t do that! I hate that!” She scolded as she slapped my upper arm. I chuckled.

“ Wanna get lost in Tokyo?” I asked.

Rey looked outside, past the glass revolving doors, “ Yeah. I think I would.”

So, that was what happened. We got lost in one of the largest cities in the world. We rode the subways and got off at stations with names we couldn’t dream to pronounce. We got lost in twisted, winding side streets that took us from the neon lights to the backyards of family homes. We found temples and McDonalds, parks and KFCs.

And then we’re on a long, wide street filled with European designer names in bright lights and stores with their products displayed in the windows. Rey grabbed my hand and dragged me from window to window as she rambled about the outfits and accessories, wanting so much but having no cash to indulge herself.

“ Oh my god, Ben, look at this dress. Its so beautiful!” She exclaimed as she pressed her hands against the glass and looked at the yellow Chanel dress. “ I would wear this like _everyday_ if I could.”

“ Everyday? Isn’t that a bit much?” I shook my head, chuckling to myself.

She whipped her head around and frowns, “ Its a three thousand dollar dress! I want to get every penny out of it!”

“ Don’t you have a hundred grand contract with some designer?”

“ It’s a two year contract! Fifty a year! Besides, its not like they just pay in advance. Its over _time_.” Rey looked at the dress again. “ If I could buy this I would...”

It was still a lot of money, but I did not bother to push the topic further. I just watched her window shop and listened to her excited rambling. I felt the weight of the camera hanging from my neck and I looked down at it. Holding it in my hands, my thumbs rolled over the knobs as I contemplated taking her picture. Hux wanted pictures, and it was not like I was being a creep because this was still technically a job.

I brought the camera up and looked at her through the viewfinder. A round face with a bright, innocent smile going on and on about the Tiffany rings on display. I took her picture, the moment captured on a 35mm film. She turned around and I took another picture.

“ What are you doing?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

I shrugged, “ Taking pictures of the scenery.”

Rey rolled her eyes and walked past me, patting me on the shoulder as if to tell me, ‘Come on, stop being so damn obvious’. I shook my head as I followed her, but not before I took another picture. If Hux asked, I’d say I was trying to take a picture of the city lights.

We kept walking around until the lights and tall buildings faded into street lit quiet neighborhoods, up and down hills, and followed in the direction of the large Eiffel Tower resembling structure glowing orange in the distance. We did not say much, as we tried to navigate the maze that was Tokyo. I watched as she took in the sights and sounds, occasionally commenting on the water bottles that lined the privacy walls of the homes or the the fact most of the homes kept their windows open despite the thick humid heat permeating off of the concrete surrounding us.

I occasionally snuck a picture in, allowing her to walk ahead of me as I stopped and snapped. I became more comfortable with it, and I let my mind convince myself that this was not work; we were off the record, enjoying a foreign city with nothing more than our curiosity guiding our way. It tried to go beyond, but I would not let myself think of this as a date.

This was just an ice-breaker.

“ I think the hotel is by that tower,” Rey said as she pointed at the red-orange tower in the distance. “ I can see it from my hotel window.”

“ You want to head back?”

Rey shook her head, “ No, not really.”

“ Well, let’s keep walking then.”

We started walking again. I looked at my wrist watch out of habit and move my jaw when I remember that the watch is not synched up to whatever time it is in Tokyo. It was really frustrating to not know the local time. I did not even know why I decided to wear my watch. I looked up at the sky and it was dark — I could see some stars but with all the light pollution, it was hard to make out anything. But I had a feeling it was pretty late.

Rey was humming a song softly to herself as she walked a few steps ahead of me. She suddenly stopped and looked at me. I stopped just a couple of steps in front of her. I did not know why we were stopping again, but I did not ask either.

“ I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while, but why is someone like you here?”

She asked the question like its almost impossible for me to work for _Vanity Fair_ , let alone be assigned to write a documentary piece on a model like her.

“ I needed a job.”

Hux would have been offended by the intonation of the way she asked the question, but not me. It was not like I was trying to be anything I was not. So, I was going to answer the question truthfully.

With a raised eyebrow, she nodded as if she’s impressed with my answer.

“ You’re an honest guy. I like that. Not too many like you around in this industry.”

See? Being honest had its rewards.

“ Uh, thanks.”

“ So if you needed a job, what happened with the National Geographic one?”

I silently sucked in a breath. Not intentionally, just out of a subconscious reaction to my uncle and those last few months where we just kept clashing on practically everything. 

“ I decided that I couldn’t work with my uncle anymore.”

The words stumbled out of my mouth like bricks, heavy with unspoken tension weighing them down. If she wanted to talk about it, I guess I owed her the privilege of indulging her curiosity since I was being paid to invade her own, but I was not going to go into it as willingly as I would have liked.

She pursed her lips for a moment.

“ Oh, okay. How about we change the topic?”

I blinked, “ Why?”

“ Because I can tell by the tone of your voice that this is going to be a touchy subject.” She smiled, “ Ask me a question.”

“ On or off the record?”

Rey started walking again, a few paces ahead of me, and turned around to walk backwards. She stuck her hands into the pockets of her jeans.

“ I thought this was supposed to be off the record?” She called out playfully. I took the bait.

“ I was joking!”

She turned around and continued walking. I caught up with her and we were now walking instep with each other.

“ You’re really bad at jokes, Ben Solo!” She laughed.

“ Yeah, everyone said that about me.” I ran my fingers through my hair, thinking of something to ask her. “ Siblings?”

“ None. You?”

“ Same.” A moment, then, “ Parents?”

She laughs, “ Well, _of course_ , Ben. There’s no way I can exist without them. How about you?”

“ Well, mine are separated.” I said matter-of-fact. “ Have been since I was a kid. They’re still married, just… Dad prefers to live on his own. Always…traveling.”

My parents had always had a weird, unconventional relationship, so I was not one of those individuals who tried to cover it up or avoid the question.

I felt her hand on my arm, though. Soft, delicate fingers slightly wrapped around my upper wrist. A tingle of a shock reverberated up my arm and throughout my body and I almost yanked my arm away. I could look at her and I was sure I’d see those almond shaped hazel eyes staring right up at me, but I did not. I rather not… do anything that could compromise me on this assignment.

“ I’m sorry.” She said softly.

There was a pain there. A pain that I used to feel when I was a teenager watching my Dad walk out the door again when things got too rough with Mom. I could have asked her about it, maybe even open up to her so she can dissect my emotions and mental state with the precision of an arm-chair diagnosis. We could have founded some common ground and shared a bond over emotional traumas from childhood.

“ Don’t be sorry,” I huffed out, instead. “ There’s nothing to be sorry over.”

I was over it

* * *

When we finally got back to the hotel, it was almost one in the morning. We were both sweating, our feet hurt, and we were exhausted. Her hand was still wrapped around my wrist. Just there — finger tips gently brushing against the palm of my hand, but never once intertwining with my own. I wished I could explain why I didn’t pull my hand away — why I just let her hold me as we spent the next two or so hours navigating narrow streets to find the hotel — but it just… _happened_.

There was nothing wrong with it. I already knew she was a physical person.

It just made better sense to just leave it alone.

Her fingers fell from their place around my wrist and back to her side once we spotted Mitaka — the miserable looking robot — sitting in one of the seats in the lobby of the hotel. I could feel her stiffen again, the transformation back into the person I’ve always known her to be taking place with each step she took.

He had not seen us yet, at least not with her hand around my wrist, but he looked like an angry father waiting for their kid to come sneaking into the house after breaking curfew. He was dressed in only a wrinkled pair of grey slacks and a white dress shirt; the clothes from last night.

He looked horrible. Either he just woke up or he has been nursing a major hangover all day.

Mitaka finally noticed us when he looked up and saw Rey slowly walk towards him, with me only a few steps behind her. I wondered if I should have just addressed him or left the two alone.

“ Where were you?” I heard Mitaka ask. Rey shruged her shoulders, but there was a nervous laugh to accompany it. “ Where did you take her?”

He was talking to me now. I stopped, just slightly behind them. “ Sightseeing.”

“ I told you—“

“ Nothing happened, Mitaka.” I said exasperatedly. “ We walked in circles for a few hours. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I heard him sigh as I quickly made my way to the elevators. I pressed the up button, and as I waited for the elevator to make its decent down fifteen floors, I could hear Mitaka quietly scold Rey for going out without letting him know. It was only when I was inside the elevator and the doors closed that the guilt on my shoulders finally lifted itself.

I made a call to New York once I was back in my room and had the call fees charged back to the room. Judging by the current time, it was definitely afternoon back home so Poe would be in his office. As I sat on the bed, I took off my wrist watch as I held the receiver between my ear and shoulder and put it on top of the night stand. I slowly began to unbutton my shirt when I heard Poe answer the call.

I did not even hesitate, “ This personal thing is not going to work, Poe.”

“ What do you mean?”

“ I persuaded her to go out with me tonight. Not on a date, but to break the ice. Once we got back to the hotel, Mitaka was there waiting for us.”

I did not hear anything for a few moments. My hands fell from my shirt onto my lap. Was he going to give me another rant about how I should do my job? I braced myself for the oncoming speech, when I heard his voice again.

“ Mitaka is a problem but you’re a smart guy, Ben. You made the first move — casted the line and she took the bait. All we need to do now is just reel her in.”

“ What are you implying?”

“ Don’t go to Rey. Have Rey come to you.” I heard some noise in the background, like someone just entered his office. “ I gotta go but be sure to get my gift. Stay safe.”

The line was dead before I could even respond back.

I looked at the camera resting next to me on the bed.

I put it back in the suitcase and did not take it out for the rest of the trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the reviews and kudos :)
> 
> next chapter is the start of the reylo pain train. choo choo.


	6. part i : chapter vi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's always two sides to a coin

**part i : chapter vi**

Hux would probably kill me for what I’ve done. I’ve probably committed the ultimate photographer sin. Developing film at a Walgreen’s one-hour photo with pictures taken with an intermediate level SLR Nikon camera, I would assume it’s almost as bad as someone using a computer printer to publish a story. In my ridiculous self-induced shame, I take the gaudy package from the hands of the teenager behind the counter at the photo center and hastily make my way out of the local Walgreens.

I debated on the flight back on hanging the roll of film over to Hux to develop, as he requested I do once I got back. I decided to keep them for myself, came up with some lame excuse that I destroyed the film when I was putting it in. The pictures were too personal for me to hand over. I didn’t want him asking questions, did not want to be reminded of the rest of the trip.

He would have found something to put in my face. Then Poe would pile on. It was for the better.

The Japan trip ended on a very awkward note. The Suntory photo shoot had finished without any problems, but there were obviously some unfinished issues with her agency that Mitaka had sought to have fixed before they had returned to the States. I could still remember the fear in her eyes as she spoke to Snoke on the phone — I could not hear much, but she kept apologizing while the Robot looked on with the smirk of a child that finally got their classmate in trouble.

I wrote it all down in my notebook but as my mind continued to mull on it I was having my doubts on whether to include it in the article.

Once I got to my apartment, I sat at my desk and pulled out the photos I had took. They weren’t amazing, he’ll most of the shots were blurred or unfocused, but of the decent ones that I did manage to take she had looked amazing in each one. I stop flipping at one photo – of her looking at that dress in the store. Her smile was so natural, relaxed as if she did not have a single worry in her little world.

My thumb rolled over her profile and let it linger for a brief second before I catch myself and quickly shove the pictures back in the bag. I sighed in frustration — I was not going to let myself… I was not going to _allow_ myself to do something foolish.

I opened the drawer and dropped the photos inside of it then take out my notebook and turn to my notes. I start working, allowing the sounds of the keys hitting paper clear my mind of the increasing, unnecessary frustration I had been feeling as if late. Each word that hit the page was full of that annoying style Poe had molded me into — fluffy yet serious — grandiose sentences describing a lie for a model and her busy life.

_She loves her work — even the time difference doesn’t stop her from giving her best_.

It’s a fucking lie. I turned the page in my notebook to that section of notes of the phone call. I cracked my knuckles, and started typing:

_But there are moment when the bubbly smiles and laughter stop. Times when things become business when she’s on the phone with her agency, being berated over the phone for little things like her diet and her night time activities. It’s those moment where the smiles fade and —_

I stopped typing. I looked at the paper — at the black Pica font with the ugly truth. I ripped out the sheet from my notebook and shoved it in the drawer before slamming it shut.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

* * *

Beautiful, vain people surrounded me at the rooftop party at some Park Avenue apartment. It had been a few weeks since the trip to Japan, and Poe had invited me to tag along with him on one of his parties. It was a way, as he said, to get my feet a little wet in this industry. I did not want to go but apparently, I needed to work on my people skills.

I was, as he said, pretty fucking intimidating.

It was a wrap up party of some Broadway play — a limited run that apparently had made some buzz in the city, but not enough to get nominated for anything. Needless to say, the apartment and rooftop was full of actors, models, and other socialites that were just looking for a quick high and some good booze. Most of the conversations were vapid, either about the scandalous affairs of the Hampton’s most influential couples or who’s fucking who on Broadway.

Whenever someone comes my way, they usually end up turning somewhere else.

“ You gotta let up, man.” Poe said as he handed me a champagne shoot full of the golden bubbly. I took it and frowned at him.

“ No.”

He sighed and shook his head, but not soon after he spotted someone else and greeted them with a loud, boisterous greeting. I looked at the glass in my hand and poured the contents into the potted plant next to me.

I eventually decided to walk around the apartment, making mental notes of people I recognized and named I overheard. Then, on the couch in the living room I see _her_ with a group of people laughing loudly. I stood there watching her taking in her makeup and hair — heavy and straightened. A tight black sleeveless dress and stilettos.

She looked so much more different than I had remembered from the photo shoots. It was like another person was sitting there.

“ Ben?”

I heard my name and blinked. I saw her lips move again, “ Ben! It is you! Come here and join us!”

I do as she said — make my way over to the couch of pretty people and their leader, Rey Niima. She made room for me to sit next to her and I obliged.

“ This here is Ben Solo,” Rey introduced with an arm around my shoulders. She leaned into me and I could smell her perfume — light and floral in contrast to her dark smokey eyes and red lips. “ My _biographer_.”

There was a round of applause and I did not know to thank them for it or just sit in silence. So, I sat in silence.

“ Wow, so the princess gets a biographer? Impressive.” A platinum blonde said from the other side of the leather sectional. She watched me with steely blue eyes and crossed her long legs with an amused smirk as if I was some sort of form of entertainment for her. I looked at her and she decidedly took a sip from her drink.

Rey detangled herself from me.

“ Oh, stop, Phasma. I’m no princess.” Rey replied but Phasma only shrugged.

“ The Supreme Leader likes you, Rey. And when the Supreme Leader likes you, that means you become the princess.” She finished her glass, but there was no mistake to the jealous bite in her tone.

“ Who exactly is the Supreme Leader?” I asked. Phasma put the glass down and started shuffling through her silver purse.

“ Jonathan Snoke. It’s a nickname.” She said flippantly as she took out a small little vial. She unscrewed the top and brought it to her nose. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out what she was snorting. “ This party is absolutely dreadful. Does anyone care to liven it up a bit?”

She looked directly at me. I looked at the vial in her hand.

“ I’m good.”

“ Fair enough.”

The others in our group take her up on the offer… All passing a little vial and snorting it as if it were candy at lunch, all trying to be the cool kids by pretending the pixie sticks were the real hard stuff. I was not shocked; in fact, everyone was doing it. I had done it – once in another life that I did not want to remember. I watched the vial make its rounds until it ended up into the manicured hand of Rey Niima.

I watched as she tapped some white powder onto her index finger and sniffed it like a professional coke addict. I could not definitely say that she was one at the time; everyone had a line or two at parties these days. It didn’t mean they were moving on to crack afterwards. But it was obvious this wasn’t her first time. She wiped the excess off her nose and handed it back to Phasma. She closed her eyes and leaned against me with a content sigh.

I looked down at her, finding the situation absolutely awkward, if not uncomfortable. With the amount of threats that I have received over the last month by her Robot keeper, I had conditioned myself to expect him to lurk in the shadows somewhere. I felt the sense of dread drop into the pit of my stomach as I felt her hot breath against my neck.

I shifted uncomfortably.

“ Things are about to get really interesting.” Phasma said behind her empty glass.

It was almost as if she was daring me to write about this moment for the next issue. What’s not scandalous about drugs and parties attended by who’s who in New York? I wanted to ask her what she meant, but then decided to hold off. This wasn’t the time or place to try and go toe to toe with a model at a party full of drugs and alcohol. I remembered my days in university at the bars – I had my fair share of sober rooms at police stations and bandaged, bloodied hands.

My left hand flexed at the memory. I swallowed and stood up. Rey looked up at me, I could see her from the corner of my eye, but I didn’t bother to acknowledge her. I did not want to give this Phasma woman any unnecessary ideas.

I needed fresh air and less noise. I needed less … temptations.

I could not say I wasn’t disappointed as I leaned against the railing of the rooftop, looking down onto the nightly skyline that made up midtown. I had this image of her in my head that I had wished so much to be true that, well, seeing her like this was an absolute let down.

I needed to get the hell out of there. I looked down at my wrist watch and took note of the time. Damn past midnight.

“ Ben? What are you doing out here?”

I went stiff at the sound of _her_ voice.

“ Getting some air.” I mumbled. I could hear her heels against the concrete of the rooftop coming closer. She stood next to me, leaning against the rail.

“ Air is nice.” She breathed in and exhaled slowly.

“ Yeah, it is.”

It was quieter on the rooftop. The cars and their noise could barely be heard from where we were standing, blending with the rumble of air-conditioning units and power generators of the nearby buildings.

I felt her hand on my wrist. I looked at her hand and followed up her arm, up her arm, to her freckle covered shoulders and finally onto her face. She was looking at me with hooded eyes and a smile. But it wasn’t just any smile — not like the smiles from Tokyo or from the press conference. It was a different smile, a smile that meant only one thing.

Now, I would not have denied that I felt some … warmth at the feeling of her fingers curled around my wrist. I probably would have even enjoyed the contact – and if I had a few drinks in me, I would have definitely played right into it.

But I’ve seen that look before. I’ve seen those eyes before.

Her thumb circled over my pulse point. I licked my lips. She pressed closer against my side.

I knew that look. I knew it quite well.

She was fucking high.

“ I’m gonna go.”

“ Don’t go.” She giggled. I pulled my hand away before I allowed myself to do something stupid. I turned around and pushed myself off the rail.

“ I honestly gotta go.”

“ Ben…”

She stepped in front of me and placed a hand on my chest. She wrapped my black tie around her hand and pressed herself against me, pulling on my tie for leverage. I caught my breath. Her scent had enveloped me — all I could smell was her perfume. I could hear the blood pumping against my ear, the throbbing pooling down in a place that I was too embarrassed to admit. I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly.

“ Rey… you’re not all there. I’m telling you… nicely to just let go.” I licked my lips and tried to ignore the temptation of those red lips and glossy hazel eyes.

“ I like you, Ben,” she whispered as she leaned up. She was just a breath away from my lips. I could nearly taste her. “ I _really_ like you.”

Soft.

They were soft.

I could have tasted the fruit. If I had wanted to… I could have taken her on that roof top. I could have selfishly indulged myself in figuring out what the flavor would be like, what she could have felt like. If this were five years ago, I could have easily taken advantage of the situation. But, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not like this.

I slowly detangled her hand from my tie and softly pushed her away, the ghost of her lips lingering against my own. She gave a soft whine of a protest and tried to kiss me again.

“ Do you do drugs?” I whispered. She stopped just before our lips touched again. “ Is this you or is this the drugs?”

She sucked in a breath. I opened my eyes and saw something. Shame?

Rey took an unsteady step back.

“ I…”

“ I have to go. I can call you a cab,” I paused, suddenly realizing that she was better off away from here as well, “… You should go too.”

The softness of my voice scared me. But she only shook her head and wordlessly returned to the party, as if I had dropped a bucket of cold water on her. She did not look back as I watched her disappear inside the rowdy crowd. I did not blame her either. What had just transpired was something that neither of us was in the right mind, or place, to have let happened. It was better off this way.

I stand on that roof top for a few minutes and licked my lips, tasting the alcohol. Tasting _her_.

I quickly left the party and made sure to rid myself of her once I got home.

* * *

There was something I quickly learned after that party — what happens at the parties, stays at the parties. Despite sharing a half truth of what had transpired at the party between me and Rey to Poe, the event was dismissed almost flippantly by the guy. It’s entertainment, he berated with an exasperated sigh over the phone, sex drugs and rock and roll, after all.

But, I was also ordered to scrap any mentioning of the aforementioned trifecta. So, I was left with nothing more than awkward memories and, like an annoying gnat in the back of my mind, the confusing feelings about that girl.

There was no mistake that she was beautiful — it was a damned near fact. Anyone with half of a functioning sex drive would have fallen for the model and I was sure that there were men, and women, around America masturbating to her more scandalous fashion spreads. But, for me, Rey represented something of a taboo; a gateway to a door that I did not want to open again.

Rey was trouble, I had begun to realize that and the less time I needed to spend with her the better. I did not want that annoying gnat to become something more — an infestation of flies consuming every inch of my body, guiding me into doing something that would ultimately destroy what either of us had worked for.

I looked at my desk and thought of the pictures I had taken in Japan.

Rey was gorgeous, but I was not going to let my dick do the talking.

I heard the phone ring. I did not give my number out to people who weren’t in my work circle, so I had only assumed that the person calling me up on an early Wednesday morning was Poe requesting something else of me. When I answered it, I didn’t expect the voice on the other side to be female —

— I did not expect it to be Rey’s voice.

 “ Hi, Ben… I’m sorry I’m calling you up like this. I… got your number from Mister Hux.”

My throat went dry. I suddenly forgot how to speak. She sounded so much different than I had remembered her sounding like at the party. It was even comparatively different to what I was used to hearing when she was on the job. It was… cautious yet, almost shameful. Was she apologizing to me?

“ I was wondering if you’d like to meet up with me.”

Suddenly, I found some courage to speak, “ Meet up?”

“ Do you know where The Cloisters is at?”

“ Uptown, right?” I flexed my fingers and looked at my bare feet against the old wood floor. “ Uh, yeah. Yeah. I can get there in about forty.”

I heard her breathing on the other end. It felt like minutes, but it was only a few seconds.

“ See you there.”

I never been to The Cloisters. Never had a reason to. People had weddings here, looked at the foul Hudson River, or came for the gardens and weird architecture. None of those were good enough reasons for me to come this far uptown — until a little canary called and asked me to.

Rey looked different. At least compared to how shitfaced she looked last night at that party. Granted, as she stood in front of me, I couldn’t really gauge the level of shitface from the pair of sunglasses she wore that covered half of her face or by the pink lipstick. But coke and liquor never did mesh well together, and coupled with the all black attire, I’d imagine she was probably a good light seven on the hangover scale.

“ I want to apologize for last night,” She said. “ That’s not me.”

“ I can tell.” I snorted. I wiped my nose and acted as if I did not see her wince. “ I’ve been there before. Trust me. I’m not gonna let one night of booze and blow mess up my professional opinion about you.”

She laughed, albeit nervously, “ So, um, that’s good.”

“ I’m not gonna write about last night… if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“ No! No, no… I… Why would I be worried about that?”

“ You’re the type to worry about what others think.”

I saw the blush on her freckles cheeks. I ran a hand down my jaw and looked over at the murky Hudson River from where we stood in the garden. My mind briefly drifted off into considering the amount of dead bodies currently held down at the bottom with the fishes. Had to been at least a good hundred or so.

“ Anyway, how about them Knicks?”

Rey laughed and before I realized, I was laughing too.

* * *

A few blocks south of Fort Tron Park was a four-story apartment building with a gate, alongside Riverside Drive. We had left The Cloisters, deciding to walk back to the subways and simply go our separate ways, but ended up taking Riverside Drive to some place I never been to before. Rey told me she had something to show me and since I had much time to kill, I did not mind skipping the A Train if it meant to spend more time with her.

The place did not look fancy. Instead, it seemed to be consumed by the towering apartment buildings surrounding it on either side. There were some people hanging out on the stoop, but nothing that would have put me on alarm. She adjusted the strap of her purse and nodded her head at the building.

“ I have a friend who lives here. I’d like to introduce you to him.” She said.

“ Oh, so we’re at the introduce to your friends stage of our, ahem, professional relationship?” I said.

She looked at me and I knew she was giving me the biggest roll of her eyes possible. She opened the gate and I followed behind her, up the stoop and inside the building.

It wasn’t an apartment building. There was a front desk reception and adjacent to it, a lounge filled with people watching a small television set propped up on a file cabinet. There was a vending machine down the hall leading to some offices, or at least that’s what I thought they were. Rey took off her sunglasses and hit the bell a few times at the front desk. She looked a lot better than I had originally thought, though her eye makeup was obviously remnants of whatever she wore last night.

“ Hello?” She hit the bell a few more times. “ Anyone there?”

Someone came running down the staircase to the right of us. I see a black guy wiping his hands on an apron as he rounds the banister, and the moment his eyes fell on Rey, the biggest grin appeared on his face and he immediately ran over and hugged her. She returned the hug, and I stood there like an oversized giant in a tiny house. I looked at wristwatch and then around the lobby before looking at them.

They were still hugging.

Was this her boyfriend or something?

I glanced at my watch again. Two minutes.

“ Uh,” I cleared my throat. “ Uh, yeah. I guess this is the person you wanted me to meet?”

Rey pulled away and laughed as she stepped aside and held her hands out at this stranger, “ Ben, I’d like you to meet Finn. Finn, this is Ben.”

Finn wiped his hands on his apron and held one out to me shake. I shook his hand and he gave it a firm grip before letting it go. He looked at Rey with a raised eyebrow and I was starting to believe that this guy was really her boyfriend. I did not know if I needed to say something or that he was going to say something, so I just raked my hands through my hair and stood awkwardly waiting for someone to start the conversation.

“ You look like shit, Rey.” Finn said. Well, at least we were starting on the right foot by being truthful. Rey hung her head and gave a long, resigned sigh.

“ I had one too many last night.” She said as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “ Nothing for you to be worried about.”

Finn looked at me a little suspiciously. I raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing to me. He didn’t need to — it was written all over his face; he thought I had something to do with it. I opened my mouth but closed it after reconsidering my options. Not in my part of town, obviously in some halfway house… I didn’t need to get the shit beaten out of me over some misunderstanding.

“ Rey,” He stressed. “ We talked about this.”

“ Yeah, I know and I already told you that I’m fine.” She grabbed my arm and moved closer to me, as if I was now her human shield.

I was completely and utterly confused at what was going on.

“ So, uh, it’s not what you think.” I said, a little bit too defensively. “ I’m just a writer. We’re, uh, coworkers. She’s a job — uh, that actually sounded really bad. Hi, my name is Ben and I work for Vanity Fair and I’ve been assigned to write a series of articles on her.”

Finn’s expression relaxed, but only slightly. It looked like he had some bone to pick with the fashion world.

“ Are you her boyfriend?” I blurted out as I felt the blunt nails of Rey’s fingers dig into my skin through the sleeves of my shirt. “ Cause, like I said, this is not what you think.”

“ Why the hell do you think she’s my girlfriend? I’m married.”

I finally noticed the wedding band.

I felt like an idiot.

“ Well, shit… That’s really convenient.” I pulled myself out of Rey’s grip. “ So, uh, yeah. Why are we here?”

* * *

I found out that Finn was one of Rey’s friends from way back — before she had even been discovered by Jonathan Snoke — over terrible coffee in styrofoam cups in a room with nothing but chairs and a podium at the front of the room. I could barely get a sip down before I gave up and placed the cup on the empty chair next to me. Rey drank it as if it was water and she was suddenly stranded on a desert.

“ I worked for the First Order for a while, when Rey got signed.” Finn told me as he was arranging the chairs in the room into a circle. I had the sickening feeling of deja-vu. “ I was mostly a runner. A coffee boy. I thought it was cool in the beginning, you know, being surrounded by pretty women all day, but that shit got old really quick. It got ugly, toxic. I had to get out.

“ So I did. I left. I tried to get her to leave, too, but things were going good for her. Snoke had found her to be interesting.”

He said the words with so much disdain I was surprised Rey didn’t jump back and defend her lord and savior. Whenever we were on a job, she made it a point to lay down the praise thick, but when Finn disparaged Snoke, she sat there quietly in an almost silent agreement.

“ When you mean toxic, what exactly are you implying?” I asked, almost journalistically. I was not trying to look for a story, it was something I did out of habit.

Finn finished setting up the room, “ I’m sure you already know. Anyway, I have a NA meeting that I need to facilitate in about five minutes. You two are obviously welcomed to sit and watch.” He gave Rey a look, “ … Or participate.”

I had expected Rey to turn down the offer, but she agreed to stay. The room was filled with the people we had saw earlier, all of them recovering junkies — heroine, crack, cocaine, morphine… If it could get someone high, they were once on it. Some of them looked like they were knocking on heaven’s door, while others looked like they had cleaned up, but it was obvious they were one hit away from relapsing.

I knew the feeling all too well.

As we sat there, off to the side, listening to these recovering addicts’ stories and Finn’s counseling, my mind began to drift to the memories of my own recovery. Of the days spent in small rooms like that one, sitting in a circle and bleeding our hearts out for everyone to hear and sympathize. It took me months to admit that I was an alcoholic. By the third month my denial was almost comedic, and yet that damned counselor stuck with me until the day I got my chip. It took me two years and a fall out with my Uncle to finally see the light.

And yet, I was always a glass away from relapsing. It fucking scared me.

It still does.

I rubbed my hands together, almost as if it were a nervous reaction to hearing their stories. I could feel the horrible memories creeping their way to the top of my mind’s eye — the nights spent completely wasted, blacked out drunk, with cuts and bruises on my hands and arms. Unexplained injuries that could not even begin to explain how it happened. I was a fucking mess and all I could think of was how glad I was to be fucking alive and sober.

I took a look at Rey. She sat in the fold out chair, her legs crossed, watching the group with such rapt attention it was obvious that whatever they were saying had resounded deeply with her. She pulled the long sleeves of her black shirt over her hands and wrapped her arms around her body as if she were trying to comfort herself.

Then, I saw the tears silently falling down her cheeks.

I reached for her, hesitantly at first, my hand hovering over her small, lithe back, then rubbed soft circles in reassurance as she continued to cry silently.

In that moment, I learned we had something in common. It would be a first of many.

We left the halfway house with the topic of drugs left in that room. I never understood why Rey brought me there or why she willingly sat there to listen to that NA meeting. We walked back to the subway station in silence with our hands in our pockets.

When I got home, I looked at my typewriter with the beginnings of the article that I had written. I pulled the page and tossed it in the trash.

I start again, this time with the intent to protect her rather than destroy her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> choo choo. 
> 
> double chapter update!
> 
> part one is officially finished, after one year of planing, spec writing, first drafts, and final revisions. i started this project june 16th of last year, and so in celebration of one year i've decided to post two chapters! yay! 
> 
> the remaining chapters of the first part will be released once a week. :) 
> 
> thank you for your support. tell me what you think and don't forget to hit that kudos button.


	7. part i : chapter vii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a kiss of regret or a kiss of shame?
> 
> tw: mentions of suicide

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part i : chapter vii**

I shrugged out of my sports jacket with a huff and fanned myself with my black undershirt as I stood at the arrivals curbside at Miami International. The jet engines of the planes coming and going were loud and drowned out the competing conversations of tourists and business travelers trying to get out of the airport and into the city.

I wiped the sweat off of my brow.

“ I fucking hate Miami.” Hux grumbled. “ It’s hot, sticky, and a mosquito hellhole.”

It was already June, and the weather had finally become moderately enjoyable back in the city, but the difference in Miami was shocking. Of course, it should have been expected to be sitting in a sub-tropical sauna, but there’s really no way to know what to expect when one doesn’t travel outside the five boroughs. Especially if that one person was a British ex-pat named Armitage Hux.

He was dressed in Bermuda shorts and a cotton button down, but he looked like a red tomato wrapped in white and teal. He clicked his tongue as he looked at his watch.

“ Where is that _stupid_ intern with the rental.”

“ We just stepped outside not even five minutes ago.”

“ Five minutes too long,” Hux groaned, or was it a whine? “ I wished that he wouldn’t send me here to Miami with _you_ but he wanted pictures. Oh my God, I’m dying out here. I need a cigarette or a drink or something.”

A small Toyota pulled up in front of us. Hux’s scraggly intern stepped out and quickly attended to his master’s demands. As he grabbed suitcases and opened doors, I wordlessly got inside the car, barely being able to fit my oversized body in the back seat.

I had a bad feeling that the next two days were going to be rougher than I would have liked. As we pulled away from the arrivals curbside, Hux continued to complain in the front seat, reaffirming the dread at the pit of my stomach.

* * *

Miami was like the television shows. Palm trees swayed in the wind, expensive cars lined the streets along the beach, beautiful people were everywhere, and every rich white guy looked like they were trying to wear their best Crockett from Miami Vice costume. The one thing I did not anticipate was how absolutely unbearable the humidity was. It didn’t matter if you were inside or outside, there was no escape from the thickness of the hot air.

Though, there was some relief being out in the bay with the backdrop of the Miami skyline behind us. As long as this yacht kept moving, the sun could not bake any of us into human crisps. We were invited to another photo shoot for Rey, this time some summer spread for a European magazine, modeling some fashion designer’s bathing suits and so were allowed to indulge in the finer aspects of being on an expensive yacht.

The catering was delicious, at least better than that duck I was forced to eat two months ago. The champagne was smooth and Hux was actually in a good mood, as long as the drinks kept coming. Things were going good so far.

I watched Rey work from the side, away from the hustle and bustle of the photo shoot. She had to been wearing her fourth bathing suit since the boat sailed, and she looked amazing in each one. I would have been in denial to not admit that she was a very beautiful woman. I had been thinking that way about her for a while, despite my better judgement to not to so. It was a fact that could not be disputed, and I was being paid to describe her with adjectives of flattery: pretty, beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful, etc.

It was not because I was falling for her. It was just an observation.

When she looked at my direction with that small smile, I focused on my old notebook. I was running out of pages.

* * *

“ What is it about Miami that you like?”

“ Look at the water, Ben. What is there can you not like about turquoise water and white sandy beaches?”

Rey gave me a smile and I rolled my eyes, “ Is that the truth or were you paid by the tourism board to say that? Did you not see the syringe in the sand?”

“ Ben, is the glass always half empty with you?”

“ Is it always half filled with you?”

We laughed as if we were old friends and not as a journalist and a model. This time our interview felt more like a conversation over catered lunch. There was a table that separated us covered in empty plates from the film crew’s lunch. She sat in one of the chairs, her foot propped up on the chair as she folded her fingers around her knee. She wore a beach shawl over the bikini she was wearing, saving me from having to focus on everything but her face.

I was ashamed to inwardly admit to my _curiosity_. I was glad she kept things professional.

She raked her fingers through her teased hair, shaking it out.

“ Sometimes it’s both,” I eventually said, turning the page in my notebook, “ Sometimes it’s neither.”

“ That’s deep.”

“ I try to be sometimes.”

The tape recorder clicked, and I looked at it to see that it had stopped recording. Rey rested her head on her knee as she watched me set the tape to record on the opposite side.

“ What do you do with these tapes once you’re done with them?”

“ They’re the property of Vanity Fair, so, I don’t know. I turn them in and they probably archive them.”

As I went to press record, I hear Rey’s voice, “ Can I ask you something, off the record?”

My finger hovered over the button, “ Uh, sure. Yeah… what is it?”

I wondered if she was going to bring up that time at The Cloisters — where we kind of, sort of tackled the issue of her apparent drug usage — and braced myself for the conversation, but she asked me about something else instead. I looked at her and blinked.

“ What?”

“ Do I look fat?”

“ You don’t even look a hundred pounds when wet.”

I laughed and she sighed as she sat up in the chair, putting her foot down onto the deck. I leaned back into the chair and crossed my arms, my jaw moving slightly as I contemplated the sudden change of mood in our conversation. Rey looked at her blue manicured nails.

“ Mikata told me that I looked like I had gained a few pounds. Then I started to think that maybe I did — cameras make everything bigger. Did you know that?”

“ Mikata should be the last person to listen to when it comes to weight. Trust me. You look great.” I gave her a small smile and reached over to ruffle her hair. She swatted me away with a light laugh.

I had almost caught feelings then. Almost. I pulled my hand away and cleared my throat.

“ Shall we continue?”

With her nod I pressed record.

* * *

I hadn’t seen Mitaka or Hux all day. A blessing, really, to be on assignment and not run into either banes of my existence. I had managed to get some writing done in my hotel room before deciding to fall asleep and take advantage of the wondrous soft sheets provided by the Marriott, paid for by the plentiful business account that was Condé Nast.

It was late into the night when I heard a knock on my door. I slowly got up out of bed and walked over to the door. I did not even bothered to look through the peep hole to see who it was — hopefully whoever it was would run away upon the sight of large man in nothing but his underwear.

Instead, the one who was on the receiving end of shock was I as I looked directly into the face of Rey Niima. Suddenly I felt naked and slammed my door. It was enough to wake me up — the adrenaline pulsating through me as I scurried around my room for a pair of pants. I found my discarded slacks and slipped them on.

I walked over to the door and opened it up. She licked her lips as she looked at me and I wished I hadn’t seen that. I used the door as a shield to hide my obvious shame.

“ Ben, can I come in?”

“ Do you know what time it is?”

“ Can I?”

I looked at her and noticed the sleeveless silver sequin dress she was wearing. Her makeup had smeared slightly. Something had happened. I stepped aside and let her in. I looked outside into the hallway for any prying eyes before closing the door.

Rey slowly walked over to my bed and sat down. I looked at the digital clock and took note of the time. It was well past three thirty in the morning. I didn’t have to attend it, but I knew that she needed to be on location at South Beach in less than four hours for her shoot with Hux. Why she was suddenly here had me a bit worried.

“ I got your room number from the front desk.” Rey said. “ I wanted to see you.”

“ You could see me tomorrow…” I mumbled as I walked over to the table with my typewriter and notebook. “ I’m here till Wednesday.”

“ I had dinner with a big producer. Movie producer. Snoke wants to transition my career into movies and… scheduled a meeting with this man.”

“ How’d it go?” I sat down slowly in the tiny chair next to the table.

“ I started to think about flying, you know. I always wanted to fly — far away, into the clouds, up into space. Wanted to see the world from above. So, I thought that maybe I could try it. I stepped out there… looked down at all of Miami and… realized I couldn’t quite do it yet.”

“ Rey…”

She looked at me with a smile, “ Could I stay here tonight?”

“ Rey, did something happen?”

“ I’m not a loud snorer.”

I sighed, realizing that I wasn’t going to find out whatever happened. I got up, took a pillow off of the king sized bed and walked over to the couch that was next to the window. I put the pillow on the armrest and sat down.

“ Yeah. You can sleep here tonight, Rey.”

I couldn’t sleep that night. I laid on that couch staring up at the ceiling as I listened to her soft snoring. There was a sickening feeling at the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t shake away. When she woke up, she didn’t talk about whatever happened to her that previous night, and I didn’t bother to bring it up.

I only wished her luck before closing the door behind her retreating frame. When I finally got back into the bed, all I could smell was her perfume on the sheets. I closed my eyes hoping for a dreamless sleep, but my dreams were haunted by her smile, her laughter, and the curves of her body.

I woke up and masturbated shamefully to the memories of the dream. It wasn’t my best orgasm — my conscience eating away at what I had just done. I tossed the spent tissue into the trash and got up from the bed. I needed a cold shower.

“ Fuck.”

I was no different than that fucking producer.

* * *

“ You look miserable.” Hux told me from behind his cup of tea. He took a sip and put it back down in the coaster. He looked so refreshed behind his sunglasses and slicked back hair, like he was on a vacation rather than on a job assignment.

“ How can you tell?” I mumbled as I looked at the menu. There wasn’t anything on the menu that did not cost less than ten dollars. Even the cereal was eleven ninety-nine.

“ Dark circles. Stubble. Sloppier than usual dress. You know, you but ten times worst.” Hux waved for a waiter. “ Were you drinking last night? Must I order you something for the hangover?”

“ No. I don’t drink. I have a lot on my mind as of late.” I put the menu down. “ None of it any of your concern.”

“ Ah, yes, I forgot you’re the rare unicorn of sobriety.” The waiter arrived with his usual pleasantries. “ Yes, I’d like the eggs benedict with a side of fruit and a mimosa. And my friend here will just be having a glass of orange juice.”

“ Is there anything else?” The waiter asked, looking in my direction. I shook my head — I couldn’t justify spending twelve bucks for a bowl of cereal, even if it was on Condé Nast’s dime. Hux was a different story; fucking opportunist.

“ Yesterday was a mess.” Hux had already begun to vent his day at me without me even soliciting for it. I should have been used to it but it always managed to annoy me. “ Poe said we needed photos for the next two issues on that piece you’re writing, and I was insisting that we make it an indoor shoot because those two issues will be printed in the winter, but no, he absolutely insisted that they be outdoor.”

“ Right.”

“ There’s just no way of negotiating with him. He always manages to get what he wants and it’s absolutely driving me up a wall. So, I did what he asked of me, despite my objections to his horrible idea and what did I get in return? Not even a fuck you very much. I have bent over backwards, literally and figuratively, for that ungrateful little git —“

I blinked. What was he going on about?

“ When you mean literally and figuratively…?”

“ None of your business. Anyway, I don’t think I can work with him anymore. Not like this.”

“ Oh.”

Well, that confirmed my suspicions. They’re fucking each other. That would explain that working lunch from two months ago. I leaned back in the chair, pulled off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. I could have fished for a confirmation but Hux kept running his mouth. There were more than enough pieces to put together at that point.

The waiter arrived with the breakfast. Hux immediately went for the mimosa.

“ Is it normal for movie producers to have late night dinners with potential actresses?” I asked. Hux raised an eyebrow as he finished his drink.

“ It’s not a typical arrangement but it happens. They don’t call it the casting couch for no reason.”

I felt sick. I could not even stomach the glass of orange juice. The memories of the night before flooded through my mind, giving the entire situation a brand-new context that I should have realized the moment I saw her at my doorstep.

And then I remembered what I did after she left. I rubbed my eyes with an audible groan.

“ Is this about her?” I didn’t reply but I heard his gleeful laugh. “ It is!”

“ Look, this is not about her, alright? Don’t start twisting things into one of your perversions.”

“ Right, and I’m the King of Scotland.” Hux ate one of the chopped mangos from the fruit plate. “ Mixing work with pleasure is probably the worst thing anyone in this industry can do. Especially if it’s with _her_.”

“ Why do you insist on this delusion that I’m trying to fuck her?”

“ Because anyone who isn’t blind can see the way you two look at each other. Especially the way she looks at _you_. It’s none of my business, though.”

“ Please, for the love of God, shut up.”

Hux picked up the bowl of fruit and held it out to me, “ Care for some fruit?”

I got up from the table and put my glasses back on. Hux sighed as he put the plate back down on the table. He took my glass of orange juice and sipped from it.

“ You want to know something, Benjamin?” He said as he put the glass down.

“ What?”

“ She did not do anything that she did not _want_ to do. That’s the way things work here. Either you fuck them, or they fuck you. So, unless you want to deal with a world of pain, I’d suggest that you just leave it _alone_.”

I did not want to have this conversation anymore or listen to his annoying voice. There was one more day left until I would be able to return to my life of mediocrity in New York, and if I could make it through that day without having to inflict pain upon Hux or do something I would end up regretting later down the road, it would be an achievement.

I mumbled some form of an excuse as I left Hux to his cold breakfast and return to my hotel room to get ready for the final interview I had with the girl. As I walked through the lobby, I see a bald old man in a suit walking towards the elevators. He was flanked by two body guards so I could only assume that he was obviously someone important – I just didn’t know who. I stand next to him as I wait for the elevator and notice just how damned tall he was for his age.

The elevator doors open and, being someone raised with some morals, allowed him to get on first. He doesn’t say anything to me as I follow after. His body guard presses the button for the top floor.

“ Fifteen, please.” I said. The body guard wordlessly presses the floor button.

The elevator began to ascend, and then I hear the old man clear his throat. I don’t look at him but I could feel his eyes on my back. It gave me chills.

“ You must be Benjamin Solo,” He said with an interest. I turned my head to look at him and he’s smiling at me; an old, crooked smile. Who the fuck was this guy?

“ Yes, I am.”

He extended his hand out to me, “ Judging by that expression, you don’t know who I am. I’m Jonathan Snoke, president of the First Order Agency and you are Benjamin Solo, the talented journalist I picked to cover my top model.”

I slowly shook his hand with a slow nod. This was Jonathan Snoke – a tall, creepy balding old man. I swallowed and mentally began to count the dings for each floor. Currently we were on the fourth floor. There was ten more to go.

“ I really like your work. You have a way with words that seem to take the most mundane and turn it into something… amazing. Your work with Rey has really made waves in the industry, you know. People see her potential.”

“ Uh, thank you….”

The seventh ding. Eight more to go.

He moved to get a better look at me. He reached for my glasses and pulled them off of my face. I stood there in shock from the intrusive action. What in the hell was he thinking? Did he not hear the phrase ‘personal space’ before? He folded my glasses in his frail hands as he stared at me with his cold blue eyes.

“ You’d make a great model. Unconventional, but that’s your secret. Your _potential_. Your eyes, especially, are like a storm. Do you wear glasses often?”

“ No.” I said. “ Only when my prescription runs out.”

The thirteenth ding. He gave my glasses back to me. I quickly put them on, and I was sure my hands were shaking as I did. He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a business card. He gave it to me as the doors to my floor opened.

“ I’ll be watching you closely, Benjamin. I have a feeling you’ll be a wrecking ball in this industry.”

I stepped out of the elevator backwards, the card in my hands. I looked at the card as the elevator doors closed. I crumbled the cardstock in my hand, intent on throwing it out, but then something gnawed at the back of my mind.

I smoothed out the card and shove it in my pocket. I have no idea what compelled me to keep it.

* * *

 

“ I didn’t know you wore glasses.” Rey mentioned to me as I set up our interview.

I looked up at her from where I was crouched at, my fingers hovering over the tape recorder on the small table. She was standing at the door that lead to the patio of the house the photographer had rented for the final photoshoot. I could hear the crew on the other side of the door, laughing and talking about everything from sports to movies as they wrapped up the shoot. Rey had already changed out of her bathing suits, now in a modest t-shirt and jeans.

“ My prescription ran out.” I said as I stood up. I motioned over to the empty chair. “ Wanna start?”

We sat down, a table and a tape recorder between us, and begun the interview. It started off like how all the other ones did: the weather, her thoughts on the photoshoot, what were her final impressions of Miami, etc. Questions that didn’t scratch the surface, that weren’t deep enough to be worth anything more than fluff next to pretty pictures.

Then, the conversation had went in a direction I had not anticipated.

“ I didn’t expect things to take off so fast. Sometimes I feel as if I can’t keep up with it all. You know what’s that like, right, Ben?”

“ Kind of. Not to the extent of what you’re dealing with, but I could sympathize.”

“ Yeah….”

I shifted in my seat, pressed further with my questions, “ Why – How did you get involved with all of this? Was it really something you always wanted to do?”

Rey pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on top.

“ No, not really. It was more or less a means to an end.” She paused, her eyes drifting to the door. “ I was scouted by Jonathan Snoke. Personally, by him. The agency has scouts but those who are _personally_ scouted by the president himself are considered to be the crème de la crème. There aren’t too many of us.”

“ What do you mean there aren’t too many?”

“ The models who are picked by Snoke tend to burn out quickly. They rise quickly and fall harder. But, anyway, I knew what I was getting into. What about you?” She looked at me, hair falling into her face, and gave me a small smile. “ What makes you tick.”

I scratched the back of my head, “ This isn’t about me.”

“ Aw, come on. I want to know a little something about you.” She paused, “ Okay, the basics.”

“ Fine,” I sighed, “ Just the basics. I’m an only child. I grew up in Connecticut. I went to school for business, graduated with an MBA, and got a job at some fancy firm on Wall Street.” I was beginning to feel confident, comfortable with telling her these things to my better judgement. The words just fell out of my mouth as I smiled like an idiot in love, “ I burned out after a year, quit to work under my uncle as his assistant, quit that job and now I’m here interviewing a really pretty girl.”

Fuck. I definitely fucked up. I looked at her face – the way her eyes went wide, the way her lips parted, and cheeks flushed – and I had known at that moment I fucked up by saying something I didn’t expect to come out. I could feel my own cheeks burn and my mind scrambled to do some damage control. I had to put out the fire before it got out of control.

“ I mean, it’s not like… I’m not trying to say… I mean –”

I felt her lips on mine.

I didn’t know when or how she managed to slip between my legs, but there she was, standing between them as she kissed me. I could have pushed her away, but I didn’t. I could have stopped her from trying to coax my mouth open with her tongue, but I opened myself to her and tasted the sweet strawberries she had eaten earlier during the break.

I closed my eyes and let her burn me alive.

I took my hand and weaved it into her hair, cupping the back of her head as I pushed up against her. She gasped and I kissed the side of her mouth, her jaw, her neck. I buried my face against the crook of her neck, breathing her in, holding her close until something clicked in my head.

Like reality came crashing down and reminded me what I was doing was absolutely wrong. I shouldn’t have done that. I was taking advantage of the situation – taking advantage of her. I swallowed and pulled away, letting her go.

My hands fell onto my lap. She looked at me, confusion written all over her face. I hung my head and sucked in a breath.

“ I’m sorry.” I said softly. I reached for the tape recorder and pressed the stop button. “ I shouldn’t have done that.”

“ Ben – “

“ We’ll end it here for now.” I got up and gathered my things. My notebook, the tape recorder; I shove it all in my bag. “ My editor will call your people if I need anything else.”

I don’t even give her a moment to breath before I’m out of that private room. I quickly find Hux and tell him that I’m getting a cab back to the hotel. He did not question me, as if he knew what was going on, and only nodded. Could he smell her perfume, or did I look like I had just made out with the person I was supposed to be interviewing professionally? I wiped my lips as I walked away and looked at my hand – there were light traces of her lip stick.

She was dangerous and I nearly burned myself. I could still taste her, hours later, on my lips.

When I came into my hands in the shower, I had hoped to feel some form of a shame, but the only thing I managed to feel was the yearning for more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANKS TO REINASOLO FOR THE MOODBOARD LIKE WTF ITS SO GORGEOUS AND PERFECT???
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading y'all. comments and kudos makes a girl happy, lol.


	8. part i : chapter viii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a taste as sweet as nectar, he can not resist the vice of temptation

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part i : chapter viii**

“ I’m really surprised at how well this series is getting. Who would have thought that Ben Solo, of all people, would have come up with such an amazing idea?”

The heat of summer was at it’s highest. August was brutal, but nothing was as brutal as sitting in Poe Dameron’s office as he gave me the update on the Rey Niima profile column that I had been writing. His annoying over-compensating delivery made me want to sit under a magnifying glass in the middle of Harold Square, but whenever Hux showed up, I wanted to tie myself to a block of concrete and throw myself into the East River.

Apparently, the Japan episode was the most popular of the three that had been published. It was the second one that was published and the most flattering of all of the articles that I had written about the woman. But whenever that Dameron would remind me of the success of that particular column, my mind would immediately think about how it was that fucking trip which caused a whole fucking ton of problems.

It had been two months since the Miami photoshoot. It was also the last time I had seen her and, honestly, I was glad for that. Things had gotten out of control, for some reason that I had yet to figure out, and I honestly did not want to be around to find out. Rey Niima was a fucking gnat, a goddamn fly, a nuisance that was tempting me down a pathway that I honestly did not want to go down.

She was trouble. Cute faces and nice tits aside, the girl was trouble.

“ I also heard something else from the grapevine,” Poe drawled with a smirk. I could only guess what that grapevine was. “ You and Rey were apparently giving each other ‘fuck me’ eyes down in Miami. Now, I am not going to ask you to confirm or deny the validity of the rumor, but I’ll accept it as long as it keeps producing some quality content.”

“ Fucking Hux.” I growled underneath my breath. I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed, “ There is nothing going on. There are no ‘fuck me’ eyes. It’s as professional as it’ll ever get.”

“ Like I said, I’m not asking you to confirm or deny the rumors.”

“ The rumors meaning Hux’s bullshit.”

“ I decline to identify the source of my information.”

We were at an impasse at that point. Usually, I would have asked for my check and walked out. It was the perfect excuse to find my freedom outside the walls of the Vanity Fair Fashion and Lifestyle floor of the Conde Nast building, but the checks were now being mailed to my apartment. My excuses had turned into small prayers to the divine, a glimmer of hope for some salvation from the hell that was being in Poe Dameron’s office.

Usually, they went unanswered, but that day someone did listen. It was not who I had expected to be, but it was someone none the less.

“ Ah, Amilyn. Long time no see.” Poe said as the tall, slender woman in a grey suit walked into the office completely unannounced. I turned around to look into the face of my mother’s best friend; she looked at me with an amused expression.

“ When was it the last time we spoke?” Holdo asked with mirth behind her blue eyes. Poe crossed his arms and contemplated the question.

“ Months, I’d have to say. The Christmas Party.”

“ Ah, yes, the party in which you got completely drunk and made a fool of yourself in front of everyone, even our investors.” She gave a light, mocking chuckle. “ If it wasn’t for me, I’m sure you would have been back on the beat again.”

“ I am eternally in your debt, Amilyn,” Poe stressed, “ … dear.”

It was amusing to finally see Poe squirm. I sat back with my arms crossed and a stupid grin on my face as I watched the shorter man get flustered by Holdo’s sharp tongue. If I had a camcorder, I would have filmed every moment and then watched it over and over again to remind me that Dameron could be knocked down a peg or two. It would be like cathartic therapy.

“ I’m actually here to steal Mister Solo off of you for a bit.”

“ No, no. Go right ahead. We were already wrapping up our meeting.”

I got up and did not even look back as I followed Holdo out of his office. I closed the door behind us with a bit more force than necessary and I was sure Poe was losing his shit once he heard us out of earshot.

“ I’ve heard about your success with the Niima column,” Holdo said as we walked over to the elevators. “ A surprise to be sure, but a welcomed one.”

“ It’s completely evolved into something that I did not quite anticipate it’d be.”

“ Things tend to get that way. One minute you’re thinking everything is going to go according to plan, and then there’s some hot shot coming in blowing it up right in front of your face. The trick to getting control back is putting the hot shot back in his place.”

The elevator doors opened, and we stepped inside. Holdo pressed the lobby button and the elevator began the descent.

“ I wanted to talk to you about The New Yorker.” She gave me a side glance. I would have been lying if my heart did not jump in my chest when I heard her say that. “ We are about to open a new department – well, not a department, per say, but a new column. We’ve been going over the budget for next year and the board is thinking we might have enough wiggle room to introduce some new fresh-faced writers.”

The doors opened, “ Are you offering me a job?”

“ Not exactly,” Holdo said as she stepped out of the elevator. I followed right next to her. “ I was wondering if you could maybe, perhaps… Convince your uncle to write for us. He’s impossible to get in contact with, as you’re very much well aware, and your mother told me that you would be my best chance of getting to him.”

“ I see.”

Holdo stopped walking and shook her head. Disappointment was the least of her worries with the way I was looking at her. She tucked a few curly strands of purplish grey hair behind her ear that had fallen free from her top bun and sighed a sigh that reminded me of my mother trying to placate me after hearing some bad news. The was a big difference, though. I wasn’t a frustrated fourteen-year-old teenager pissed off at my dad.

“ I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear and I am honestly trying to get you in, but you know how it is in this business. Your uncle has credibility and clout. His work will open that door a hell of a lot faster.” She put her hand on my arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “ I promise that when we get the budget approval, I’ll have you over there working on what you really want to write about.”

“ But until then just be a fiction writer for a fashion magazine.”

I spat the words out with more bitterness than I had realized, enough for Holdo to visibly wince. She gave me a pat on my shoulder.

“ Trust and bear with me for just a bit while longer okay, Ben?”

I never realized how bad I wanted out of my situation until Holdo came barging back into my life dangling a carrot in front of me like a dog at a racetrack. I watched as she left me in the lobby, into the elevator and up to her cushiony office on the top floor of the building. Did she not know that I haven’t spoken to my uncle in years? The whole damned reason why I was even there was because I quit working for him.

Just thinking about him pissed me off. I was never going to contact him, let alone offer him a goddamn job on _her_ behalf. If she wanted him so badly, she could have found him her own damned self.

I left the building with my nerves twisted tight. I rounded the corner, down one of the alleyways and kicked over an over filled garbage can. I screamed at the ground, hoping that it would relieve me of my frustration, but it did nothing. I raked my hand through my hair and took a deep breath.

I just needed to calm down. It wasn’t that serious.

I kicked the garbage can again.

And again.

And again.

I kept kicking it until I was sure I kicked a fucking hole right through its metal form.

“ Hey, you! What the fuck is ya doin’ there?!”

I looked up and saw some middle-aged man in a white shirt looking outside his window at me. I put my hands on my hips and paced back and forth.

“ Fuck off!” I yelled as I pointed at the fucker. “ Or do you want me to come up there and fuck you up?!”

The man gave me the finger before disappearing back into his apartment. I kicked the garbage can one last time before heading home.

* * *

 

Sobriety sucks when you’re wound up to the point of snapping. I sat at my desk with my notebook opened and a typewriter with nothing on the page except for one stupid fucking sentence. I had not been this angry since I left my uncle, and usually when I did get this angry, I would immediately self-medicate myself by becoming blackout drunk. That way, when I woke up the next morning, I didn’t have to remember much of the pain that lead me to it. Fuzzy memories were better than clear, vivid disappointment.

I looked at the business card that I had pinned to the wall. Snoke was a weird man; creepy and almost perverted in his ways. I remembered the way he watched Rey on the final day of the photoshoot in Miami. He looked at her as if she were his possession, a thing that he owned and enjoyed watching her perform for his sick enjoyment. I had been so fucking caught up on silly feelings that I had lost track of why I had even put myself in this situation in the first place.

I wanted to destroy something and that something was Rey Niima.

That was the original plan that Hux and I came up with. If I was going to be in hell, I might as well bring everyone down with me. I started typing – sentences upon sentences of the ugly truth that was that Miami weekend. I wrote about that producer, I wrote about her fucking keeper telling her she was fat, and I even wrote about how Jonathan Snoke was a fucking pervert.

By the time I was finished, I had typed up three pages of rage induced word vomit. The sun was setting and I leaned back in my chair, watching as the apartments had a bright orange glow to them. I started thinking about why was I even there; why did I bother coming back to New York to do this journalism thing when I could have just stayed at my cushy Lehman Brothers job, making a shit ton of money, fucking a bunch of women, and enjoying as much blow on yachts like every other man my age. Life sure would have been a hell of a lot easier than this.

I rubbed my face with a sigh and stood up to open my window.

The phone rang.

I watched it knowing that there were three possibilities on the other end, and neither of them was one that I was wanting to entertain. I walked over to the phone and picked it up.

“ Hello.”

There was silence on the other end. Then, my stomach tightened once I heard her voice, “ Hello? Ben, I’m… sorry if this is a bad time I’ll just call back.”

“ No. No, no. I’m… I’m fine.”

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“ Do you mind coming over? I want to talk to you about something.”

I flexed my fingers. I knew that this was going to be a decision that I would later regret, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying yes.

* * *

 

Hell’s Kitchen was a neighborhood that was recovering from one bad spell. The upper half of the neighborhood was absolute shit, crawling with homeless and drug addicts, while the lower half was bleeding from the exploitation of millionaires and starving artists. It made sense that Rey was living here.

The loft was large, and I couldn’t imagine that she was fronting the rent for this place all on her own. Between the expensive furniture and view of the Hudson River, I was sure that she had to been more of a temporary occupant in a company paid for apartment.

I still did not know why I took her up on her offer. This was well beyond professionalism at this point.

“ Phasma is out of town for the next two weeks,” Rey said as she fixed drinks in the kitchen. “ I have the place to myself.”

“ Who’s Phasma?”

“ The blonde from the party. My roommate.”

Phasma’s mischievous face came into my mind’s eye. Ah, yes, the provider of the blow who happened to be the roommate. Two addicts living together made perfect sense. Of course, it would make sense that she was a model, especially one signed to the same agency as Rey.  The First Order apparently liked to recruit the best of the best it seemed.

I heard the clink of a glass and turned around to see Rey holding out a glass of white wine to me. I wordlessly took it from her and took a small sip. That was the first mistake of that night.

“ What exactly is it that you wanted to talk about?”

Rey walked over to the couch at the center of the open loft and sat down. She curled her legs underneath and took a sip from her wine.

“ About things.”

“ What are things?” I took another sip. “ Is this work related? Off the record or on the record?”

I couldn’t bring myself to sit on that couch with her. I did not trust myself to be around her. I did not want another repeat of Miami to happen.

Rey sighed as she rolled her neck, “ Why must everything be work with you?”

“ Because it’s my job.”

“ Can’t we be friends too?”

No, we can’t. We can’t even be in the same room as professionals without having things escalate to awkward make out sessions. I did not tell her that, though, instead opting to stand in silence and watch her finish her glass of wine. She stood up and put the glass down on the coffee table.

“ I honestly would prefer if we kept things professional.” I said as I watched her grab the bottle of white wine and walk back with it to the couch. She sat down and popped the cork, pouring her a healthy serving.

“ Well, I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen.” She patted the empty spot next to her on the couch. “ Sit down, I don’t like talking to air.”

I sat down on the couch, making sure to keep a fair-sized distance between us. She held her glass in both her hands as she looked at a random spot on the wood floor. She seemed a bit distant; something was definitely bothering her. Why did she think I would be the best person to talk to about her issues, I didn’t know, especially when she had Finn on the other side of the city. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I was the lucky guy picked to hear her out.

“ I ended up getting the role in that movie. I got the call this morning from Mitaka. I thought I would be happy to know that I’d be staring in some big Hollywood movie, being a nobody from the east end of London, but I actually felt dirty. Can you believe that?”

I took another sip, though the sips were becoming less and less like little wetting of the tongue and actual consumption. My glass was already half empty.

“ Why did you feel that way?”

“ I didn’t audition for it.” She finished her glass and went to pour herself another serving. “ Well, I guess I did audition. Snoke made me do it. I didn’t want to, but I had to do it because the _Supreme Leader_ expected it of me to do. So,” She reached over and topped off my glass, “ I did it.”

I finished the glass of wine. I never realized how much I missed the taste of wine on my tongue. I grabbed the bottle and poured myself another glass.

“ No one should make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Rey laughed bitterly, “ Easy for you to say.”

“ I guess you’re right.”

We sat there on that couch drinking in silence. One glass became two that became three which turned into swings from the bottle. It was a good bottle of wine, not top shelf but not that cheap shit either. I took the final swing from the bottle, only tasting the last remaining drops on my tongue. I looked inside the bottle, expecting to find an ocean of fermented grapes only to find the green abyss of an empty glass bottle. I put the bottle down on the coffee table with a little less finesse than usual.

Sun kissed legs came into my field of vision and I looked up at their owner. Rey stood before me with a glass of what I could assume to be was gin. I took it from her, and we tapped our glasses together before downing the liquor.

I coughed and looked at the glass.

“ That was strong.” I said hoarsely as I tried to find my voice. Rey snickered as she took the glass back.

“ I thought you said that you didn’t drink.” She said as she walked back to the wet bar. I leaned into the couch and groaned as I wiped my hands down my face.

“ I don’t…” I mumbled from behind my hands.

“ Well, we only live once.”

She came back to the couch with only a glass of liquor. I looked at her and tried to not focus on the way her shirt hung off of her shoulder, exposing sun kissed skin, or how short her shorts were. I focused on her lips instead, but they were wet, and I could only think of how good they tasted, of how soft they were against my own.

If I weren’t drunk, I would have left that apartment. I would have gone home and gone back to work on that damned article. I would have gone for a jog and burned away my frustrations.

If I wasn’t drunk.

But I was drunk, and I couldn’t stop thinking about _her_. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I wanted to do to her. Feel her. Kiss her. Slip inside her.

Everything at that moment was all about her.

“ I want to feel good.” Rey exhaled as she crawled into my lap. She took a sip from the glass and leaned forward, burying her face into the crook of my neck. I took the glass from her and finished off the drink as I felt her breath against my skin. “ Can you make me feel good?”

I sat there for a few moments, trying to think clearly and process what she had just said. I shifted slightly and closed my eyes.

I took the plunge.

The glass fell unceremoniously onto the floor. My hands slid underneath her shirt and came in contact with her hot skin. I traced them up the curves of her hips, to the dip of her waist, and rested them underneath her small breasts. She was so tiny; I swore to God that if I applied any pressure she would have crumbled.

She licked the crook of my neck and left an open mouth kiss. I felt her lips move along my jaw, up the side of my face, the corner of my mouth before I chased her with my own. I kissed her as my hand grabbed a breast, kneading the soft mound in my hand. She gasped as my thumb brushed her hardened nipple and I pushed forward, deepening the kiss and tasting every bit of her as she ground down on my hips.

I took my other hand and held her neck, my thumb gently rubbing against her jaw as our tongues pressed against each other. She moaned as she broke away, turning her face to the side, breathing heavily, as I continued to kiss her.

“ I want to feel you so bad,” She whispered breathlessly. “ I want you, Ben. I need you.”

She rolled her hips against my obvious erection and I hissed a curse. Fucking hell, I was done for. Absolutely fucking done for.

“ Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled as she got up from my lap. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her down again, capturing her lips. I pushed my tongue into her willing mouth and rolled us over, her back against the leather as I hovered above her.

Her cheeks were so flushed – so fucking red that my body ached knowing that I did that. It was me who had her wanting me, needing me, mumbling my name breathlessly. My cock was straining against my underwear. I needed to fuck her. I needed to be inside of her. I needed that release.

But she wanted me to make her feel good.

I reached for her shorts and pulled them down, over her hips, until they were off. She was wearing nothing underneath and I cursed as I watched her spread her legs open, showing off her trimmed pussy and how fucking _wet_ she was for me. My hand traced up her inner thigh, up, up, up until I felt the heat and moisture of her aching pussy against my fingers.

I slipped one finger in slowly and she keened.

“ You are so fucking wet,” I mumbled as I slowly pumped my finger in and out of her. “ Jesus Christ, Rey…”

“ More, Ben. Fuck.” She whined. I slipped another finger in, my thumb rubbing over her clit in soft, slow circles as I pumped them in and out of her. Her mouth parted as her breathing became labored. “ More… Fill me up, please.”

I pulled my fingers away and trailed kisses down every exposed part of her body until I reached her inner thighs. I nipped and sucked at the skin and I felt her fingers weave themselves into my hair as I got closer to her wet, aching cunt.

I was going to make her feel good. I was going to eat her out and make her cum, and then beg for more. I was going to take away that pain and make her feel like a woman. That was what I was going to do.

I gave her a slow lick, tasting her juices against my tongue. She shivered and I slipped my fingers into her cunt as I licked and sucked at her clit. The sounds were obscene – between my mouth and my hands and her moans, I could have came just then and there.

“ I… I’m gonna…. Ben, oh my God, I’m gonna come.”

She was riding my face. I put a hand on her hips and held her down as I continued to eat her out. I wanted to feel her contract against my fingers, I wanted to taste her juices, I wanted to hear her scream my name – I curled my fingers and pressed them against that soft spot within.

She came undone as her back arched off the couch. I pulled my wet fingers out of her and covered her body with my own, kissing her deeply. Our tongues pressed against each other, Rey moaning as I ground my erection into her swollen cunt.

I felt her hands travel down to my pants. She worked fast, undoing my belt, button, and zipper with a desperation. She pushed them down and my cock sprung free, hard and leaking. Rey broke the kiss to spit on her hand and grabbed my swollen cock. Once I felt her squeeze the base I was gone, burying my face into her shoulder with a shaken sigh. She made quick work, her hand giving me swift, tight strokes as I rolled my hips into her hand. She uses the precum as extra lube, and every time her thumb slid over the slit of my cock, I gave a choked groan.

“ Rey, Rey, Rey…” I panted into her hair. She planted kisses against the shell of my ear.

“ Come for me, Ben.”

“ I… Fuck, I’m gonna…”

My body contracted; I doubled over as I came into her hand and all over her hips. I could feel her take her hand and bring it to her lips. I slowly sat up and watched as she licked her hand clean of my cum.

Fuck.

I grabbed her by her wrists and pulled her up for a kiss. She responded, her mouth inviting me to taste myself on her tongue. I can smell the both of us on her and for some reason it only managed to turn me on even more rather than the opposite. I pulled away and rested my forehead against hers.

“ Thank you.” She whispered with a shaken breath. I licked my lips.

“ Y-yeah,” I said, closing my eyes. “ No… no problem.”

We went to sleep that night on the couch, her thighs wrapped around my hips, my cock pressed against the inside of her thigh. We didn’t take it further – there was no need to. We got what we wanted; we finally got off, there was no need to actually fuck each other. At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself in my drunken haze as I felt her fingers comb through my hair, lulling me to sleep.

I woke up the following morning with a pulsating headache. I slowly sat up, realizing that I ended up on the floor with my pants hanging off my hips and my cock limp against my thigh. I groaned as I got up, pulling my underwear and pants up as the hangover began to overtake me. As I fixed myself, I looked down at the couch at Rey’s sleeping form.

I could still taste her.

Fuck.

I looked around the loft for a blanket and found one on one of the beds. I didn’t know who it belonged to and didn’t really care. I covered her with the brown blanket, and she curled into it, rolling onto her side. I covered my mouth as I tried to think about what happened, but my head was killing me, as if there was a saw ripping through my skull.

We… fucked.

Or, I ate her out and she got me off.

This. This was bad. We fucked up.

This was never supposed to happen.

This whole situation just complicated something that should have never been complicated from the beginning.

Fuck!

I left the apartment. Once I got home, I took a long fucking shower but no matter how hot the water was, or how much soap I used, I still could not get her out of my mind. I couldn’t get rid of the moans, her cries, the feeling of her cunt around my fingers… I couldn’t get rid of any of it. It was like she had tattooed herself onto my every being.

I milked myself through my orgasm, the image of her swollen parted lips haunting me, and leaned my head against the tiled wall of my shower.

I was flying too close to the sun and I was going to get burned.

* * *

 

“ Hello?” Poe’s groggy voice answered. I heard someone’s voice in the background that sounded familiar, but I didn’t care enough to figure out who it was.

“ Hey, yeah, it’s me. Ben.”

“ Ben? Do… you know what time it is?”

“ Six in the morning.”

He sighed, “ What is it?”

“ I… I need some time off on this project.”

“ Is there something wrong?”

“ Yeah, there’s nothing wrong. I just need a bit of a breather.”

“ A breather?” Poe finally sounded awake. “ Need me to have the company ship you off to L.A. on a vacation or something?”

“ No, I don’t need a vacation to L.A. or anything like that. Just some time off. A couple of weeks would be great.”

“ Alright, then. Two weeks. I think I can manage something.”

“ Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Poe.”

I hung up the phone.

I considered it to be a detox. The best way to get sober was to quit cold turkey from my own personal experience.

So, that’s what I did. I attempted to cut her out of my life.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the rating just went right up into e territory. oops.
> 
> thank you all for reading, commenting, and the kudos! there's only two chapters left before part i comes to a close. see you all next week!


	9. part i : chapter ix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sometimes he just has to refrain

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part i : chapter ix**

Central Park was beautiful in the summer. Lush green trees, rolling grassy hills, and the silence of nature away from the loud congestion that was New York City. I had not had the opportunity to visit in a while, so finally having a moment to jog through the park felt pretty damned good.

It had been a week since the incident at Rey’s loft. Two whole weeks since I stupidly drank myself into stupidity. I was already weak when it came to liquor and now it was apparent that she was becoming another weakness of mine. I was attracted to her, to the point that being in the same room with her would make me think vulgar things and have urges to just touch her.

But an attraction to her was taboo. I knew that if I entertained a relationship with her, I’d crash and burn into a fiery display of regretful decisions and unbearable consequences. An addict knows an addict — put two together and the self destruction begins.

I stopped jogging and wiped the sweat from my forehead. The sun was particularly brutal. I bitterly thought of her again and the subtle irony of it all. Her temptation, the taboo of what could be was just as brutal. This was what it was like to be Icarus. This was what it must have felt like when he flew too close to the sun.

A couple of young women speed walked past me, giggling as they gave me a quick glance. One of them mentioned something about my shirtless appearance and I wished for a Walkman to be able to ignore ridiculous moments like that. Unfortunately, they were expensive, and frugality was something I had inherited from my uncle.

I then thought of Snoke. I could taste the bile at the back of my mouth.

To be constantly objectified on a daily basis must be humiliating. No, it is humiliating.

There was a part of me that felt bad for leaving like I did. It was a gnawing regret that I wished I was drunk to the point of blackout so I wouldn’t have to remember that night and regret my poor judgement afterwards. It was foolish to think that way, but the coping was always easier when I was blacked out. I always hated remembering drunk me.

I threw myself into the books I never finished in the two weeks since that night. Managed to write some stuff that wasn’t connected at all to fashion or modeling. Stepped outside of my apartment and actually lived amongst the mortals. It felt nice… for a while.

Even if she didn’t call me, her presence was everywhere in my apartment. Her pictures lingered in that drawer. The magazines sat on top of my desk. My notebook was filled with observations of her. She was like a drug and no matter how many times I went outside to jog my frustrations away, she always lingered in the back of my mind.

I stretched my arms as I contemplated my situation. I needed more…

I needed an affirmation.

I needed to talk to Finn. Maybe if I had got more information, a clearer picture, I could navigate this clusterfuck I had landed myself in.

****

“ You’re looking for Finn? Are you a participant? If you’re not and need information I can provide that for you since he’s currently busy at the moment.”

The young Asian woman sat at the reception with a big smile that made her look younger than her years. Probably because hair was was cut short into a bob; she wasn’t sporting the perms and big poofs like everyone else in this city.

I shook my head, “ Eh, I’m not a participant. But it is kind of important that I speak to him.”

She didn’t need to know what it was about. She was just a receptionist, after all. It still did not stop her from looking at me incredulously, the cheeky smile replaced with a stern cautious expression that seemed to imply I was now on a shit list. She tapped a ballpoint pen on the counter as she looked me over.

“ How important is important?”

“ Important enough that I need to see him.”

“ I never seen you here before.” She pointed the pen at me. “ I know everyone that Finn interacts with and you’re not one of them.”

“ I’m positive he knows me.”

“ I’m positive I never seen a tall shirtless white guy come by here, too.” She gave me a look down. “ Are you in need of a clothing donation?”

I was not necessarily shirtless. I was wearing a tracksuit, after all, but the jacket was tied around my waist and it was just too damned hot outside.

“ Rose, who is it?” I heard Finn call as he descended down the stairs.

“ A homeless white guy is here to see you, said it’s important!”

“ Homeless white guy? Gotta be more speci—“ Finn saw me. “ — oh. You.”

I scratched the bridge of my nose, “ Yeah, it’s me.”

“ It’s okay, babe. It’s one of Rey’s friends.”

Rose mouthed a silent ‘oh’, as if she completely understood the situation. She nodded her head and stood up from the desk. Without another word, she went up the stairs leaving me and Finn alone in the lobby. I watched until I couldn’t see her anymore and then looked at Finn.

He didn’t look to happy to see me. I guess Rey’s circle of friends had a reputation and I was getting lumped into it.

“ I’m gonna assume that’s the misses.” I said.

“ Yes. That’s my wife.”

“ Alright.” I cleared my throat. “ I need to talk to you about Rey… if that’s okay with you.”

“ Why else would you be here?” He said with an air of exasperation. “Come on up.”

****

Their apartment was small, yet comfortable. It felt lived in, with the walls and tabletops covered with framed photos of their friends and family. I watched Rose prepare some drinks as Finn sat across from me at their small dining room table. He leaned back in the wooden chair and rested his arm on the backrest.

“ So, what is going on with Rey this time?” He asked. I scratched the back of my head.

“ Nothing that you’re probably thinking about.”

“ Right.”

Rose placed a tray on the table with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses. She gave her husband a smile and left us alone. Finn took one of the glasses and poured himself some lemonade.

“ I was wondering if you could give me more info on her.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “ She’s kind of a mystery to me.”

“ Why don’t you ask her yourself? You’re the journalist, after all.”

“ But you’re her friend.”

“ I am not going to be the anonymous source in your column.” Finn fingers rapped against the tabletop. “ I thought you were going to ask me about her birthday or her nickname or something like that.”

“ Does she have a nickname?”

“ No.”

“ Birthday?”

“ April eighteenth.”

“ Thanks.”

“ No problem.”

We sat there in an awkward silence with a table between us. I picked up the empty glass and poured myself some lemonade. Finn took a quiet sip from his as he watched me warily. I shifted under his gaze.

“ I want to be honest with you, Finn. Some things have happened with Rey and I’m concerned.”

“ When you say things have happened, do you mean things involving you or things you’ve heard?”

“ Things I’ve seen.”

“ Ah.”

“ How long has she, well…” I twirled the glass and focused on how the yellow liquid spun.

“ The drugs? Years.”

“ I see.”

“ I hate to be blunt but are you … Do you abuse?”

I stopped twirling the glass and shook my head, “ No. I used to. Years ago, but I’m sober. Have the chip and everything to prove it.”

“ So, the reason why you want to know about this is because less about her and more about you.” He took a sip. The way he said it made it seem like I was being selfish. I frowned.

“ No, it’s not.”

“ Then why? You’re some guy that is being paid to write about her. It’s your job to follow her everywhere and write about it. And, you’re a former addict? Excuse me for coming into this with a very negative mindset.”

I sighed, “It’s complicated.”

“ She needs help. Not a pity party. Not a bunch of people walking on glass around her — she needs genuine help.”

“ I just want to know why.”

“ I’ve known her most of my life and I have yet to figure that out myself.”

I put the glass down and folded my fingers together on the table. I was beginning to question why I bothered coming.

“ Look,” I started. “ I get it. I’d be the same way. But, I’m not out here trying to hurt her or exploit her. I’m just concerned for her well being.”

Finn finished his glass of lemonade. He looked at me as if he was trying to discern whether to believe me or not. Did I come off like someone who he couldn’t trust? He sat up and crossed his arms.

“ She has to be willing to change herself. I’ve asked her to come by and participate in the program but she’s stubborn. If you’re not going to hurt her, all I can suggest is that you accept the fact that she won’t ever change.”

“ Isn’t that kind of negative to say?”

“ When you were going through your addiction, were you gonna to listen to someone tell you to stop? Or were you just keep doing what wanted to do?”

I resigned myself, “ I did what I wanted to do.”

“ Exactly. Not so negative now, is it?”

****

The truth was ugly. It never was a beautiful thing. I couldn’t think of a single person that enjoyed knowing the truth; they always wanted to deny reality and accept the rose-colored glasses version.

Finn was right. They have to be willing to help themselves…

… but there still should be a reason, a motivating factor for them to want to take that step. To make that change.

I thought my unofficial vacation would have cleared my mind of her but I simply had to go back and get deeper into the mess. Sooner or later I was going to be drowning in it if I didn’t stop chasing after her. I had wanted permission from Finn to continue whatever we… had… but instead I got nothing but a warning to stay away.

“ Hi.”

But it was hard to stay away when she was standing at my door.

Rey greeted me with a cheeky smile and a wave as I stepped onto the sixth floor of my apartment building. She was in a simple T-shirt and jeans, hair pulled up into a high ponytail… If she had makeup on, I was sure people would have recognized her but instead she looked inconspicuous. An average woman on an average summer day in the city.

Why was she here?

“ Uh, hi.”

I zipped up my tracksuit.

“ Care to let me in?”

I pulled my keys out of my pocket and wordlessly unlocked my door. I could smell her perfume, feel the heat of her next to me, and I mentally sighed. This was not going to end well. I opened the door and stepped aside to let her in.

I closed the door behind us and stood in the small foyer as I watched her take in my apartment. She looked at my full bookcase next to my desk and curiously thumbed through the spines, reading the titles to herself.

“ I’m not much of a reader,” She said. “ I’m more of a visual type. Artwork, stuff like that.”

“ How did you find my place?”

“ Mister Hux.”

“ Ah. Right. Him.”

Fucking Hux. I swore I was going to hurt him the next time I saw him. He was such an annoying gnat. What was he trying to accomplish by doing this? This was going to blow up in his face.

Rey continued to explore my apartment. She pulled out a book, flip through a few pages, and put it back. She looked at my desk, traced her fingers along my typewriter as if it was the most enthralling thing she had ever witnessed. She looked at my cork board and noticed the picture of her pinned to it; the one Hux took at the first interview.

“ I did not know you had these pictures.”

“ Oh.”

She unpinned the photo and held it in her hands, “ Why would you have this photo hanging over all the other ones?” She chuckled, “ This is honestly a depressing photo.”

I walked over to her and took the photo from her. I opened a drawer in my desk and put it in, quickly shutting it closed. We were only inches apart and I could already feel the tension brewing between us.

“ Why are you here.” I said — I did not ask.

“ Don’t you think that there’s something deeper here? Between us?” Rey said as she looked up at me.

I swallowed, not expecting her to come out so forward, “ No. I don’t.”

Rey reaches for my face and I stepped back, just before she could make contact. I moved to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the cupboard above the sink. I couldn’t see her reaction, but I could feel it — She was getting frustrated. I filled my cup with the tap from the sink.

“ Ben.”

I took a sip. If I ignored her maybe she’d get the hint and go home.

“ Ben. You know that’s a lie.” She came up to my side and gently brushed some of my hair out of my face. I finished the glass and put it in the sink. I put a distance between us.

“ Rey, I don’t think you understand what you’re doing.” I said as I carded my fingers through my hair.

“ I think I know what I’m doing.”

“ Rey…”

I felt like shit. My tracksuit was damp from sweat, my hair stuck to my skin in that annoying, oily post-sweat way that was irritating, and I felt uncomfortably hot as I had not turned on the air conditioning unit. And now I was having to deal with something I had not anticipated dealing with directly for at least a few more days, if not weeks.

With an exasperated sigh, I crossed my apartment, moving past her, to the window unit and turned on the air conditioner. I cranked it to its highest setting, allowing — hoping — that the loud motor would drown everything out.

“ I know you feel it too. What is happening is not some fluke. These last couple of times — the _last_ time we were together — that wasn’t nothing. There is something growing between us and it would be foolish of us to deny it.”

I hung my head and closed my eyes.

“ It’s true,” I placed my hands on the windowsill and gripped it tightly as if I needed the support. I did not know if I were talking to myself or talking to her. “ I am attracted to you. I have no fucking idea why.”

“ There doesn’t need to be a reason, Ben,”

“ No. You’re wrong, Rey.” I turned around to look at her. She was still standing in the kitchen. “ People like me need reasons. Justifications. I just can’t go through life acting on my feelings and hoping for the best. That shit ended very badly for me when I did.” I sighed frustratedly. “ What happened — what has been happening — are prime examples of why I don’t act on my feelings. They make me have lapses in my judgement.”

“ Going down on someone isn’t a lapse in judgement.”

“ Yes, it fucking is!” I ran a hand down my face. “ Jesus Christ, Rey, don’t you understand how I can’t do this with you? Yes, you’re gorgeous. Yes, you’re cute and funny. But there’s also some shit there that I absolutely can not involve myself with.”

She laughed. She laughed as if I had told her the funniest joke in the world.

“ You’re a piece of work, you know that? What are you trying to say with the whole other shit? Do you mean the blow? Is it that? Wake up, it’s the eighties, everyone is doing it.”

“ I don’t do it!” I yelled. “I don’t want to do it! And I can’t involve myself with someone who does!” I took a deep breath. “ Fuck!”

I walked over to my door, not bothering to look at her. I couldn’t look at her — I didn’t want to see the pain and frustration in her eyes. I did not want to see the evidence of the pain I was causing her at that moment. My hand rested against the door knob.

“ We masturbated, okay. I get that. I went down on you. Fine.” I said quietly, as if I was trying to reason with everything. Normalize it and toss it aside like it was nothing but a simple fling. “ We were drunk — things got heated and it just ended up happening. I would just like to leave it there, in the past, and move the fuck on.” I opened the door. “ I’m sorry.”

“ You’re a piece of shit, you know that, Ben?”

“ Yeah, I get that a lot.”

I heard her move from the kitchen. When she walked past me and left my apartment, I couldn’t look at her. I looked at a small spot on the floor, concentrating on it as I tried to ignore everything about her that made me want to grab her, throw her on my bed, and fuck her senselessly. She did not say a word as she walked away, and I didn’t close my door until I heard her descend down the staircase.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> penultimate


	10. part i : chapter x

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and so they flew too close to the sun

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part i : chapter x**

There are some things in the world that aren’t meant to be. I learned that very quickly at a young age when I had expected to spend a day at Coney Island with my dad only to be told that he couldn’t make it because he got arrested again for something stupid involving a bar fight. My mother tried to make up some excuse, but after twelve years of excuses, I learned that me and him, we were never gonna be that perfect father and son.

Rey and I, we weren’t meant to be. That I knew for certain. We were like a bad chemical reaction waiting to happen. One drop and we were bound to explode in a violent, detriment. I did not want that nor did I need it. If… I had ended it before it began, well, she would eventually understand.

The September issue had hit the stands in early August, and with it was the Miami fiasco. Well, the sugar coated Vanity Fair approved version with pictures by Hux and a glowing praise from Dameron. The check arrived just in time for the rent and there was a promise of more to come.

More of her.

After the incident in my apartment, I had not seen nor heard from her. At least not in person. Of course she was everywhere — there was that movie and the hype for that, and the commercials for Calvin Klein that were making a firestorm in the Entertainment news. Every teenager girl wanted a pair ever since she slipped them on and winked seductively at the camera, and every teenage boy wanted to date them.

A two week vacation from her ended up becoming a two month separation. It feel like a detox, like my mind and body was finally recovering from the drug that was Rey. There were opportunities to follow her around the world, but the schedules wouldn’t match or something else got in the way. I had a feeling it was intentional on her part, but Poe had assured me it wasn’t the case.

Jonathan Snoke liked me, after all, and was willing to accommodate if I absolutely needed it.

I never took up the offer. I didn’t want to be associated with his manipulative ways and hurt her. Hux thought I was an idiot, but he always thought of that about me, so it didn’t matter what he thought.

“ If I had that old man wrapped around my finger, I’d ask him for the world.” Hux finished his mimosa and went to work on the hard boiled egg in a fancy glass egg cup.

We were at a fancy café on the Upper East Side, also known as Hux’s territory. When he wasn’t in his private studio, he was among his kind in the secluded Upper East Side, with his maid and fancy three story brownstone, enjoying mimosa and hard boiled eggs in little glass cups. The guy was already born rich — his family were some duke and duchess somewhere in England and he was, apparently, within the two hundreds in the line of succession to the British throne.

As if that actually mattered. An apocalypse or something wiping out over half of the world’s population would have needed to happen if he was to be the King of England. Knowing him, if he could get the launch codes, he’d start the damn Nuclear apocalypse himself just so he could get the crown.

Ugh.

“ Anyway, Ben, why aren’t you enjoying the breakfast?”

I looked at my plate of two pancakes, dusted with confectioners sugar, and two slices of bacon. Twenty dollars. I took my fork and poked at about two dollars worth.

“ I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“ You keep denying yourself the finer things in life. I don’t know how you manage considering your background and all.” He started eating that egg. “ Having that old money you Americans go on and on about is like having a noble title and yet you prefer to live in poverty. You are quite the enigma, Benjamin.”

“ If having an insane oil baron for a grandfather, a dead grandmother by said hands of insane grandfather, and divorced parents are your idea of American nobility, then you blue bloods are seriously inbred beyond help.”

“Henry VIII killed two of his wives. George III was too busy running around the palace screaming bloody naked as America gained its independence. It would not be nobility without a little bit of insanity.”

He smirked at me and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“ I guess you’re right.”

“ Moving back to our original conversation, we have a fun little assignment together involving our favorite model. I was wondering if you had any ideas on the photos.”

“ According to Poe, it’s a dress rehearsal for that fashion week. So, we have maybe a window of one hour to get in and get out. The fashion designer doesn’t particularly want much interruption from the outside.”

“ I love fashion week. Such hideous clothes being paraded down catwalks for the world to see, and the critiques play it off like a girl in a burlap sack is high fashion.” He took a strawberry off the fruit plate between us. “ It’s even more glorious when a fashion house crashes and burns.”

He bit into it.

“ Eh, I wouldn’t know or care about that.”

“ Of course. You’re a brute.”

“ Right. So, I’ll grab the interview and you can take photos of her working. This will be a quick one so don’t plan on bringing a bunch of junk.”

He sighed, “ Fine.”

“ Also, why did you give her my personal information?”

“ Who is her and what is personal information?”

I glared at him, “ You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“ Benjamin, your phone number is clearly accessible in the white pages, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to open one up and find it.” He took a sip from the glass of water. “ Besides, who am I to say no?”

“ Why the fuck would you do that?”

“ Because she wanted to ask you about something while we were in Miami. It’s your job to interview her, and besides wasn’t it our plan to find out as much dirt as possible and burn her with it? I basically gave you the girl on a silver platter, at least you could show me some appreciation. The girl without any First Order hovering around her was bound to be open season.”

The way he smirked at me did not go unnoticed. If he had only known the problems he started by doing that.

“ Don’t give out my personal information.”

I stood up and took my wallet out, pulling out a twenty and dropping it on the table. He could handle the rest and strangely enough he never objected.

****

Takodana was a tiny space a few blocks north of my apartment, tucked between a bodega and a pizzeria, right off of St. Nicholas Avenue. It was a drinking hole filled with patrons that could get a cheap beer and some finger food with a good conversation. Sports would play on the small television that sat on top of the fridge behind the bar with the bets to go with it.

But Takodana wasn’t just any bar in uptown serving cheap drinks and food – the best kept secret was in the room at the back of the bar that hosted poker games and a numbers racket in the late hours of the night. That was where the real money was at; where Maz made her fortune. The reason why anyone went to Takodana was for the illegal gambling, everything else was just a perk.

“ Ben Solo, you should play a game or two one of these days,” Maz told me with a sly grin as she poured me a glass of club soda with a lime. “ I promise to make sure that the dealer puts the odds in your favor.” She pushed the glass towards me.

“ Never tell me the odds, Maz.” I said.

Takodana was empty. The doors would not be opening for another hour, but I was always the exception when I just wanted a club soda and some conversation.

“ I can’t pay the rent on this place with one dollar drinks.”

“ But I always tip a twenty.”

She chuckled, “ That you do.”

The television was on, airing the five o’clock news. More drama in the city – more drama in the city. With the way things were going, the world was surely to end by the end of the decade. AIDS had everyone in a panic; the news was reporting that Rock Hudson had AIDS and the reactions from the people on the street were less than stellar. Maz looked at the television and sighed.

“ Times are changing, Solo. So much negativity, fear and bigotry these days.”

“ If a meteor came and struck us out of existence, I’d gladly welcome it.” I lifted my glass. “ Cheers.”

I looked at the old posters of spirting events that covered the walls. At first glance, they appeared to be a nice aesthetic of sports history, but they were honestly records of thousands of dollars won and lost in this small space. If my father had found out about this place…

I shook my head and finished my drink.

“ Maz, need your opinion.”

“ On what?” She adjusted her glasses, “ Ah. I know that look. This is something personal.”

“ It’s more of a hypothetical.”

Maz rolled her eyes as she busied herself at the bar, getting ready for the night.

“ Hypothetically speaking, then, what is it?”

“ You know a person and have been working with this person for a while. There’s obviously some attraction there but you know that pursuing it would end bad. What would you do?”

“ First, what would end bad, hypothetically speaking.”

“ You end up doing toxic things that you swore off doing, hypothetically speaking.”

The door opened. I turned my head and saw her numbers runner walk in, waving to Maz with a grin and a bright red plum bloom lapel bright against his tan suit. He was a tall man with slick backed hair and a mustache that held the air of an actor from the 1940s with looks to match. He always wore that lapel and I always wondered what it meant. It could not have been related to an organized crime syndicate… Or could it? He did run a numbers racket in the back of Maz’ bar, after all.

He slipped into the back without a word.

“ Oh, that man is going to kill me one day,” Maz purred as she dried a glass. “ Anyway, if you have the strength and will to overcome your demons, then what harm would it be to pursue what you love? Maybe there’s a reason why you’ve crossed paths with this person. Maybe something good will come from this encounter instead if you just become that anchor. Hypothetically speaking of course.”

The news anchor was reading a statement from Rock Hudson, apparently from some AIDS benefit he couldn’t attend, _But if it is helping others, then I can at least know that my misfortune has had some worth._

There was a solemn tone to the way the reporter read the statement, when I had assumed that maybe the old actor had meant for it to be uplifting. I tapped my finger on the bar counter in thought for a few seconds.

“ Would you do it?” I asked.

Maz covered my hand with both of her own, smaller ones, “ You gotta do what you think is right.”

****

The studio was relatively small, or maybe it was because it was filled with racks of clothes, leaving only enough space to navigate the maze and lead to the mirror that expanded the length of the wall opposite to the entrance. We arrived late, but the designer did not notice, and the Robot did not care to bring it up. He actually was more irritated than anything, hoping we had not shown up at all.

It was a week after the breakfast with Hux, and I honestly was dreading every hour leading up to it. I was not ready to see her again and realistically I thought that I would never be ready. We had crossed that line and things got ugly — how could we honestly work together with _that_ baggage. Luckily, I had not seen her yet. I heard her voice (my heart beating like a ducking teenager every goddamn time), and I could hear her move around the space, but we had not seen each other.

She must have been aware that I was here. Had to have been — it was on the schedule after all. I could have only imagined what she was feeling at that moment.

The designer finally decided on a two-hour lunch after having us wait for an hour. This would be the time to get in and get out. I was already set up by the entrance, a small table and two pull out chairs with that damned tape recorder ready to go. I would interview her about fashion week and leave without spending any more time than necessary. Hux could stay — his assignment was to take photos and Rey was here for the rest of the day.

I saw her finally — a simple black skirt and a T-shirt. She was barefooted, too, dressed to quickly get in and out of outfits. She looked at me and I saw when her jaw moved, and eyes narrowed.

Things were going to go swimmingly. I just knew it.

“ Hello, Rey.” I greeted. She sat down and crossed her legs, leaning against the back of the chair.

“ Hi, Ben.”

“ I’m gonna start the tape recorder, and,” I pressed record. “ Now I want to get your thoughts on how it feels to be the headliner in your first fashion week.”

“ It feels great.”

“ Anything else?”

“ No.”

Her replies were testy at best. I tried to ignore it.

“ Have you done fashion week before?”

“ No.”

“ Um, are there any other designers or shows you’re interested in seeing this year?”

“ No.”

I sighed. Of course this would happen. What an immature little child. I pinched the bridge of my nose, “ Are you gonna actually do this interview or are you just going to sit there with an attitude.”

Rey rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms, “ Gee, I wonder.”

I stopped the recording and looked at her. She sat there defiantly, looking at everything else but me. Fine — if she was going to have an attitude, so be it, but we were on the job and I was going to get my story. I stood up and stepped in front of her. Now, I was impossible to ignore. She looked up at me and frowned defiantly as if she was asking for a fight.

Well, she wanted a fight? I was going to give her a fight.

“ We’re not doing this. Let’s go.” I hissed low enough that no one outside of earshot could hear.

“ I’m _not_ going _anywhere_.” She hissed back.

“ No, we are going to squash this right now.” I carded my fingers through my hair. “ Let’s go.”

Begrudgingly she stood up and we stepped out into the hallway. There were a few doors leading to other studios, but at the end of the hall there was an emergency stairwell. We couldn’t have this conversation out here so anyone could hear, especially the Robot, so I took her hand and we walked right to that door. I opened it and we got inside, descender one flight away from the door so that we were completely hidden from view.

I began to pace as she watched me with her arms crossed.

“ What the fuck is your problem?” She asked me. My head shot up and I glared.

“ What is your problem? What was that earlier? Can you not act professionally?” I snapped back.

“ You kicked me out of your apartment and then try to act like nothing happened. Who do you think you are?”

“ I thought we squashed this.”

“ No. You said some bullshit and then kicked me out. That is not ‘squashing’ things, that’s just adding fuel to a fire. That’s _evading_.”

“ All I’m trying to do is my job and you keep bringing up unrelated shit!”

“ How can I work with someone that constantly sends mixed signals?!”

“ _What_ mixed signals?!”

“ Every damned interview we’ve had had always ended up with us kissing. Then _that_ night and just … every damned time you look at me with those fucking eyes as if you’re trying to burn me alive. You keep making excuses and yet you do these, these _things_ …. Can you just make up your mind!”

We were shouting. Of course we were shouting — the tension couldn’t have been cut with a knife it was so thick. She was angry at me and I was frustrated at myself for letting things get the way it did. I fucked up. I fucked up big time.

But I wasn’t going to let her interfere with my work.

I glanced at the door, praying no one could hear us and come barging in. I took a step back and rubbed my chin as I mulled over what she had just told me. It wasn’t supposed to go that way — that’s what I kept telling myself. That’s what I tried to convince myself. It was just a bunch of ridiculous misjudged actions on my part.

Fuck.

What was I kidding? Nothing was going to get done as long I as I kept myself in denial. The truth was staring right at me in the face — furious hazel eyes, freckled cheeks framed by wavy chestnut colored hair. I was attracted to her. I, for some fucked up reason, was also falling in love with her. I shouldn’t have and I knew that it was bad business for me to even consider a possibility of any relationship with her.

I tried to stay between the lines. Neither too high or too low, but every moment with her had me wanting to fly higher and higher until I could fly no more.

I stepped into her personal space and pressed forward until her back hit the concrete wall behind her. She looked up at me, chest heaving as her lips parted and eyes dilated. She wasn’t scared. No. She was waiting for me to make that move. I knew that I was about to fall into the sea and drown, but it was a price I was willing to pay.

“ Want me to make up my mind? Fine.”

I kissed her. I started it — I cupped the back of her head and wrapped my arm around her waist, pulling her flushed against me. It was I who initiated this decent into the sea, only to be consumed by her intoxicating essence. I pulled her down to drown with me.

It was electric — instant. Our tongues pressed against each other as we kissed and kissed, grinding against each other, seeking for that pleasure in areas that desperately ached for touch.

“ Ben,” Rey gasped as my mouth bit and sucked on her neck. “ You don’t understand how much I’ve missed you.”

I grunted and pulled away, just enough so I could push some of her hair out of her face. We stood there looking at each other with flushed faces, and a strong arousal — an ache, a need to just feel each other.

I felt her hands on my pants. She undid my belt, popped the button, and zipped me down. I choked as I felt her hand slip into my underwear and grab my harden cock. She gave it a slight squeeze as she brushed her lips against my ear.

“ I want you, Ben.” She whispered. Her hand moved with slow strokes, making me unbearably hard. “ I need you.”

“ Yeah,” I pulled her hand out and pushed my pants and underwear down to my knees. My cock was hard and leaking for her. “ I want you too.”

I grabbed her by her waist and holstered her up where she wrapped her legs around my hips. I pushed her up against the wall, using it for support. I could feel the hot moisture of her cunt against my cock. My body burned knowing I was that close. I pressed a kiss against the side of her face.

“ Are you…” I asked.

“ Y-Yeah,” She said as she reached between us. I could feel her push her panties aside and gave herself a few strokes in anticipation. “ I’m on the pill.”

She grabbed me and guided me to her entrance. I held my breath as I pushed up into her warmth, surprised at how fucking tight and wet she was for me. There was a slight resistance but judging by her gasp and the way her thighs clenched my hips, it was a welcomed feeling. Slowly I pushed in until I was sheathed to the hilt.

My head dropped onto her shoulder and she carded her fingers through my hair. I pressed kisses there, trailing upward until my lips reached her salty skin; to her cheek, the corner of her mouth, and pulled away just slightly as she chased my mouth for a kiss, nipping against my lips until we closed in and slid out tongues together. I began to move, slowly pumping in and out of her, loving every moment of being inside of her.

Rey began rubbing herself as the paced picked up. My hips snapped into hers and she gasped and moaned my name repeatedly.

“ Aw, fuck, Rey… you’re so perfect.” I grunted as I pulled her hand away from her clit and replaced it with my own. “ I want you to come for me, sweetheart. Come all over my cock.”

Her head lolled back against the wall as she tried chasing her orgasm, rolling her hips against my cock and fingers.

“ Ben, oh my God… I…”

“ That’s right…”

She covered her mouth as her body tensed up, holding back the moan that was to come. I pulled my hand away and fucked her through her orgasm, feeling the way her cunt clenched around my cock and contracted, milking me for more, wanting me to come right in her and claim her for my own.

The sounds that came from our fucking was so damned loud. The slap of skin against skin, her juices, out grunts and moans echoed against the walls of the stairwell. If I wasn’t so thoroughly fucked, I would have stopped in fear of getting caught, but for some reason I wanted to get caught. I wanted the Robot to see what I have managed to do.

She was mine and he couldn’t do anything about it.

My body contracted and my thrusts became erratic, faster as I chased the orgasm that was building from the pool of my belly. With one final thrust, I came in her, my cock throbbing from the release, my body nearly contracting almost painfully. I barely could register where I was at. I saw stars as my head fell forward. I felt her lips against my face, open and wet as she milked me for every bit with each slow roll of her hips. I slowly pulled out of her, the combination of our fluids leaking between us onto the steel floor.

Slowly, I helped her down, her bare feet touching the floor and holding up unsteady legs. She leaned against the wall, catching her breath, as the evidence of what just happened dripped down her inner thigh.

I licked my lips. The stairwell smelt like sex. Our smells mingling into the air with sweat and musk. It was fucking intoxicating.

Rey reaches between her legs and fixed herself. I slowly pulled up my pants, tucking myself back in and sipping myself up. She ran a hand through her hair as she looked at me with her flushed cheeks and swollen lips.

“ What… do we call this?” She asked.

I buckled my belt, “ It’s … It’s casual.”

I rather not put a label on it. Labels complicated things. She nodded as if it made all the sense in the world. Like she agreed with me.

“ That’s all it is. Casual sex.”

I nodded and looked up at the door, “ I can go first. Let you know if it’s clear so you can… uh… properly clean up.”

“ Yeah, Yeah… Thanks.”

We ascended the staircase and stopped at the door. I felt her hand on my arm and I looked down at her. She weaved her hand into my hair and pulled me down for a sloppy kiss and I eagerly responded, pushing her against the wall and leaving my mark all over her body.

There was an hour and a half left on the break, after all.

Too bad we couldn’t see beyond those ninety minutes, oblivious to the shit show everything was going to become in a matter of months. As I dropped down to my knees and hooked her leg over my shoulder, nothing mattered but us and that moment. All we were doing was trying to fly as close as we could to the sun.

**End of Part I**


	11. part ii : chapter i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for new years present new beginnings and new uncertainties

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part ii : chapter i**

There was a certain glow to Poe that I had not seen before. Was it the tan or was it the cleanly shaven face and bright eyes? Or was it because we had not seen each other in about two months that he just appeared different to me. Either way, I had not expected Poe to come up to my side of town wanting a business lunch about the direction of the column. Usually these meetings were reserved for his office.

“ The quality of the column has improved so much since we’ve started it.” Poe said, mixing the rice and beans together on his plate. “ What’s been happening? A spark of inspiration?”

He shoved a healthy serving in his mouth and downed it with a beer. I shrugged my shoulders and let myself enjoy the mojo and lemon pork I ordered.

“ You know, there’s something different about you, Solo,” He said as he continued to eat. “ Got this glow to you. You’re relaxed, don’t look so damned grumpy.”

“ I doubt that.”

“ Oh, no. There’s definitely something different about you.”

“ We haven’t seen each other in two months, of course we might look different. You got a tan, but you don’t see me commenting on it.”

I know he was trying to fish for something about Rey and me. Poe and Hux had been obsessed with the idea that I could swoop her off of her feet and get the best story in the world with a quick fuck. I was not going to give them the pleasure of knowing that things had gone the way they wished.

Poe raised his eyebrows and nodded impressively. He finished off his beer and called for another order of it Spanish. The beer arrived within seconds and he popped it open and took a swing from the glass bottle. The restaurant was small, only three tables and a deli bar separating us, but the smell of Spanish food filled the air and there was no break in the stream of customers picking up orders to go in aluminum trays.

“ You’re right. I did get a tan and I had a wonderful vacation down in San Juan enjoying that warm sun and beautiful beaches over this frigid concrete jungle.” He posted the beer at me. “ But that still won’t distract me from why you seem different.”

“ I’m not saying anything.”

Poe smirked that annoying smirk but moved on from trying to pry gossip out of me.

“ The run is almost over. We have another six issues to write for, so I was wondering if you had anything planned for the remaining articles? Anything juicy or big in mind?”

“ No, nothing. I mean — what do you want me to write?”

Poe raised an eyebrow, “ Wasn’t this an expose?”

“ Uh, yeah.”

I forgotten about that. I focused on the street outside, looking over Poe’s shoulder, as he rambled on about the state of the column. It was snowing lightly, and the streets were filled with people getting ready for the New Year. My mind drifted to the last six months, how everything in my life had dramatically changed. Whether it was for the better or not, I could not have said, but I felt alright with the way things were going.

Things were going… well. More than well, actually.

I had never been involved with someone for more than a few weeks – a month was the last record – but whatever we had… what Rey and I had…. It had been going on for at least three months. Neither one of us dared to put a name on it, because doing that would make whatever we had real and we did not want that. At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself time and time again.

We were living in the moment. It was a good to live in the moment once and a while.

“ Are you listening to me?”

Poe broke my train of thought. I looked at him and nodded.

“ Yeah, I, Uh… Yeah. What was it that you were saying?”

“ I want a bombshell in the final two issues. Something that will have people talking about our magazine for weeks, if not months.”

I finished my food, “ When you’re implying bombshell… you mean expose everything.”

“ Yes. No more pussyfooting. You and Hux taught me that. Gotta go out there and take what’s mine.”

I don’t know if that was me, but whatever. It was not worth debating him on. What was more telling was his sudden change of attitude on his whole game plan. When we started this whole mess, Poe was very much against burning the First Order, but now he seemed completely okay with blowing the lid on the agency, and subsequently destroy Rey’s career.

I wanted to ask what the reason behind the change of heart was, but I had a feeling it involved a certain redhead.

“ There’s going to be a New Years party down at the old Savoy club. Ball drop and everything. Gonna go?”

“ Isn’t that closed?”

“ The owner occasionally rents it out to cover the expenses last time I heard. I don’t know who’s hosting it but I got invited and was told to spread the word.”

I pulled out my wallet and threw a ten on the table, “ I have plans. Sorry.”

It involved a hotel out on the island — far away from the noise and prying eyes of the city — where Rey and I would spend the evening fucking, eating Chinese take out, and then probably count down to the New Year, but not before fucking again.

I was almost excited for it, which was a weird feeling for me. New Years Eve was tomorrow and my mind was still on the hotel reservation on top of my desk with the LIRR train ticket I bought in advanced like an idiot.

I flexed my fingers in anticipation.

“ Every time I try to get you there in to the world of the living you always turn me down. You can’t hide forever in that apartment of yours.”

“ The reason why I always decline your offers is because Hux will more than likely also be there,” I said as I stood up, “ And I rather hide in my apartment than spend another minute with him at a coked out New Years Eve party.”

“ You’re a buzzkill.”

I started walking backwards, but not before giving him a small salute that was reminiscent of my own father, “ I know.”

****

Montauk was as far as you could get if you wanted to get away from the city. They called it _The Last Resort_ , and it could not have been farther from the truth. The grey overcast skies and violent ocean seemed to better fit the backdrop of a suicidal writer rather a romantic getaway— but considering the state of affairs, it probably was fitting. We were essentially hiding, not taking a vacation.

The cottage I booked nearly broke the bank, but it was a better option than booking a room at the hotel itself. Even though I doubted this place would have been completely booked, I did not want to risk her getting spotted by some nobody who knew somebody that knew someone at a tabloid.

It would be a guaranteed way to end both of our careers.

I stood by the sliding glass door that gave a view of the Atlantic Ocean, sipping from the tea I had made myself. I had managed to get the fireplace going after some trial and error and took in the depressing scenery as I waited for her to walk through the door. I had wondered if all of this was an ominous sign of bad things to come. The waves became more violent as the afternoon wore on, the sun no where in sight amongst the gray clouds. Sceneries like this never were associated with good, positive things.

When I finished my tea, I heard a knock at the door. Anticipation reverberated through my body as I made my way to answer the door.

“ It’s so bloody cold out there.” Rey shivered as I opened the door. I stepped aside as she came rushing in, rubbing her arms over her black overcoat. The wind was strong and blew into the cottage right after her, as if it was trying to reclaim what got away.

I picked up her suitcase and closed the door.

“ Did you get here okay?” I asked as I put the suitcase down next to the couch that faced the sliding glass door. I walked to the kitchen and put my cup in the sink.

“ I never rode the LIRR before,” she said as she unbuttoned her coat. “ There are so many lines and the tracks aren’t even dedicated. You ask people where things are at and they don’t know anything,” she tossed the coat onto the couch, “ And I know it’s New Years Eve but for fucks sake can they at least do thei— oh!”

I wrapped my arms around her from behind and pulled her against my chest. I buried my face in her hair and breathed in her in — she was using that sandalwood scented shampoo again. She relaxes against me and brought a hand to rest on top of my arms.

“ Your hair smells good.” I mumbled.

“ Your obsession with my shampoo is concerning.” She laughed.

“ Tell me your secrets.”

“ You take a plane to Paris, preferably the Concord because it’ll only take two hours, and you go to a drug store and you buy a really good shampoo with the fanciest looking label because you can’t read French.”

“ I’m sure the readers will love to know your secret.”

She turned around in my arms and hooked herself around my neck. She leaned up, her lips just a breath away from mine, “ I thought this was a pleasure trip.”

“ It is.”

We kissed slowly, our tongues moving lazily against each other. I could taste the hint of cigarettes and something sweet; it was so inexplicably her. The duality of who she was. Her hands dropped to my chest and I broke away, pulling her close, my hand resting behind her head as I rested my chin on top. We stood there in that small living room with nothing more than the ticking of a clock and the muffled sounds of a crashing ocean outside.

“ I’ve been waiting for this,” she said softly, “ You don’t know how badly I’ve been waiting for this.”

“ I know.”

“ It’s a good thing that Phasma is out of town for the holiday. I don’t think I would have been able to get away if she was there at the flat.”

“ Why?”

“ She would have gotten me to go to some party instead.”

“ If you don’t want to go you don’t have to.” I kissed the top of her head.

“ It’s not that easy, Ben.”

I could hear the defenses building in the tone of her voice and decided to back down. This wasn’t the first time we have had this conversation about her weird relationship with her roommate slash den mother named Phasma. I had only met her once, at that party all those months ago, but it did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that she could have a room under her control with a snap of her fingers.

It was a sensitive topic for her and whenever we treaded into that territory, she would simply shut it down and try to move on to something else like the weather or whatever was making the news at the moment (her knowledge of politics was quite impressive).

I pulled away from her and made my way to the kitchen, giving up on the topic and moving onto the next one — one that she liked: food.

“ I don’t know how to cook, but I’m sure you already know that so I got some chinese from my neighborhood.”

Rey perked up and came to the counter. She leaned over, resting her arms on it and glimpsed into the plastic bags full of take out. She inhaled the smell of gingers, peppers, garlics, and soy sauce with a content sigh.

“ I fucking love Chinese food.”

“ I know,” I replied with a grin. I started taking the containers out the bag. “ Special nights call for special takeout. Got peppered steak, General Tsao, some fried rice, egg rolls, and wonton soup.”

“You’re bad for me.” She grabbed a bag of fried noodles and started to eat them. “ I always eat the worst food when I’m with you.”

“ I think you mean the best food. Want one of everything?”

She nodded with a big grin and I grabbed two plates from the cabinet. As I started serving, I could hear Rey walking around the cottage. Doors opened and closed, and she hummed in thought as she observed things. I glanced up at her, taking in her lithe form underneath the black sweater dress and red tights.

She was beautiful.

Rey sat down on the couch and kicked off her boots. As I went to put one of the plates in the microwave, I heard her turn on the TV and the silence of the cottage now filled with the special programming dedicated to the New Years. A news anchor was talking about the year in review: Live Aid, Reagan’s second term, the fumble that was New Coke….

I was amazed at how much had happened and yet I never really noticed any of it.

The ding of the microwave takes me out of my thoughts.

****

The sun had set and with it was a scattering of dirty plates that were once filled with take-out Chinese on the coffee table. We were sitting on the couch as we watched the television, the hour now inching closer to eleven o’clock. Rey was sitting between my legs, laying against me as our hands were intertwined. My thumb caressed her knuckles lightly.

This was the first time that me and her had spent any time together without it leading to sex. I had honestly expected to spend most of the evening between her thighs but for some reason both of us were just content with sitting on the couch, watching TV and having idle conversation.

It was almost… normal.

We were being normal.

“ New Years always makes me feel sad.” Rey said.

“ I actually enjoy it.”

“ Why?”

“ Because all my troubles are left behind in the past. A New Year is a beginning.”

Dick Clark took over the coverage. We were now an hour away from 1986 and I could not have been more happier for it. Times Square looked like a hell hole with the millions of people crammed in to catch a glimpse of the apple-shaped ball drop. I was grateful I wasn’t no where close to Forty Second street.

Rey twisted in my arms to look at me, “ Am I one of your troubles?”

She was grinning at me and I just shook my head, “ No. Not to me.”

I leaned down to kiss her softly and she met me half way. It was a soft kiss — not our usual ones full of desperation and lust. She broke the kiss and untangled herself from me to stand up. I looked up at her as she looked down at me with the softest smile I had ever seen.

She wasn’t wearing any makeup. She was just glowing as bright as the sun. I loved this part of her. Natural and pure.

“ I’m going to go take a shower. Might as well bring in the new year without the grime of the MTA.”

I nodded as she disappeared into the bedroom. I started watching the television again, listening to Dick Clark interview celebrities over the loud frenzy that was Times Square on New Years Eve. Faintly, in the background, I could hear the shower running.

I got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and looked at the bottle of sparkling wine that sat on the rack, alone against the iridescent glow of the light inside. I had debated buying this bottle at the liquor store. Hell, I had even debated stepping inside, but I couldn’t see spending the night with her without the customary bottle. Soda was fine, but this wasn’t a sleep over.

I grabbed the bottle and two glasses. As I poured our drinks, I could hear some band performing a song I’ve probably heard before but couldn’t be bothered to name.

“ How long are you going to stand there and watch that horrible performance?”

Rey was standing at the doorway in a white slip with her eyebrowed cocked and smirk on her features. How long was I watching that? I guess long enough for me not to notice she was done. I walked over to her with the glasses of sparkling wine and held one out to her. She took it, twirling the stem between her fingers.

I could smell the sandalwood shampoo radiating off of her. I could see the freckles that dusted her shoulders and cheeks. I could see where the slip clung to the damp spots of her skin – her hips, her breasts – she was hypnotizing.

_There’s only thirty minutes left in 1985 and the crowd is going wild!_

I held my glass up, “ A toast to 1985.”

“ To 1985.”

Our glasses clinked as we toasted. We drank the sparkling wine, never once breaking eye contact with each other. Rey licked her lips once she was done and I could feel the heat rise within, the room feeling warmer. I reached and ran my fingers through her damp hair, tucking a few wavy locks behind her ear. She leaned into my embrace, turning her head just enough to brush her lips against the pulse of my wrist.

It was like an electric shock. I sucked in a short breath.

She took my hand softly into her own hands, bringing my fingers to her lips. She kissed each digit softly, her lips trailing from my pinky down my palm and back up. I felt her lips part and her tongue press against my index and middle fingers. She took them into her mouth and sucked on them. She pulled away, letting my wet fingers fall against her lips and back to my side.

“ Goddamnit, Rey…” I whispered hoarsely. She took my glass away and saunter into the kitchen. I heard the pop of the cork and the glasses being refilled.

“ This is rare of you, Ben,” She said as she walked over to the couch with the glasses in hand. “ Champagne?”

I walked over to her as I undid my tie.

“ It’s New Years Eve.”

“ I guess exceptions can be made.” She handed me my glass and I sat down on the couch. She sat next to me, curling her legs underneath her.

We sat there, silently drinking, as we watched the ball drop coverage. There was fifteen minutes left in the year.

Fifteen minutes.

It felt like a hell of a lot less.

We put our empty glasses down on the coffee table. I felt Rey shift closer to me; I felt the head radiate off of her body, her breath against the skin of my neck. Her hand moved lazily across my chest, fingers slowly undoing the buttons of my shirt.

“ I was invited to a party, but I turned it down,” Rey said as she trailed her lips against my jaw. “ I kept thinking of you.”

“ Same.”

I moved my head to kiss her. She opened up willing to me, our tongues moving against each other in a long and slow dance. She moved onto my lap, never once breaking our kiss. I felt her fingers work at my belt and then at my pants. Just feeling her weight on me, tasting her — I could feel myself straining against my briefs.

She broke the kiss, “ I’ve missed you.”

“ Why?”

“ It’s been so long since we were last together like this,” Her fingers move quickly to unbutton my shirt. “ One month is too long. You don’t know how much I was thinking about tonight.”

I let her push my shirt off my shoulders, rising up to take it off. I kissed her softly, “ What did you do when you thought about it?”

“ I touched myself,” she whispered, chasing my lips with her own. “ Came to the thought of you fucking me.”

My skin was on fire. My cock was unbelievably hard and aching to be within her tight warmth. I lifted my hips to get my pants and underwear off, and I felt her delicate hands pull them down to my knees. It was an fumbled mess of trying to get them off, but I managed to kick them off leaving me completely naked with my hard cock resting again my stomach, and this beautiful woman sitting on my lap.

I could feel her heat against my skin. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath.

Fuck.

She rose up on her knees and grabbed my cock, guiding it to her hot core. At this point, the need to fuck outweighed the need for foreplay. She slowly sank onto me, her eyes closed and her lower lip pulled between her teeth.

“ Yeah, take it.” I moaned as I felt her slowly take me on inch by inch. Her breathing hitched as I stretched her, until I was fully sheathed within her. She gave a satisfied sigh, dropping her head onto my shoulder.

“ Fuck, Ben,” she panted. “ I missed this so much.”

I put my hands on her thighs, trailing them upwards under her slip to rest on her hips. My thumbs rolled circles into her skin. She risen up, and with a slow roll of hips sank back down and we both gasped.

Yeah, I missed this too, sweetheart.

It was aching slow — the roll of her hips, the rise of my own, the wet open mouth kisses — almost like time was slowly coming to a standstill. The television was nothing but static noise against the sound of Rey’s moans, the wet slapping of bodies meeting, and the burning kisses against exposed skin.

She grabbed my wrist and guided my hand between us; a silent plead for me to take her higher. I slipped my fingers against her clit and rubbed circles against it. Her body twitched, and she threw her head back, her hands gripping onto my shoulder for leverage.

Her movements became more frantic as she came closer to the edge. She pushed my hand out the way and started rubbing herself fast and hard, moaning and whimpering loudly. She palmed her breast with her other hand, teasing her nipple over the smooth sheer of her slip as she bounced on my cock.

“ Oh, my God… Ben… I’m gonna come.”

“ Come for me.”

“ Oh—oh _God_ …”

I felt her walls flutter and clench down on my cock as she came undone on my lap, her slickness spilling between us. I pulled her off of me and flipped our positions, she beneath me on the couch, and thrusted right into her slick, wet cunt. I don’t give her tome to recover as I kissed her hard and she responded just as eagerly, wrapping er legs around my waist, pulling me close and deeper.

There was less than two minutes left in the year.

Our bodies were slick with sweat, and I dip my head down to lick at her clavicle, neck, the juncture between. I trail my nose against the side of her face, breathing her in, letting myself drown in her.

I could feel myself being close, oh so fucking close.  And she was begging me, pleading, “ Ben, please, come for me…”

It was like something had snapped. I pushed deep into her and came, filling her up with my cum. She pulled me down into a deep, sloppy kiss, her fingers weaving into my hair and gripping tightly. I did not move, instead breaking the kiss and rested my forehead against her own. I licked my lips, my body still sensitive, every sensation practically overwhelming.

“ Happy New Year.” I heard Rey say breathlessly after a moment of us lying there, still joined, still breathing erratically.

 _Auld Lang Syne_ was playing from the television. I gave a breathy laugh as I slipped out of her, brushing her sweat damped her from her face. We missed the ball drop. It amused the hell out of me. Wasn’t that the purpose of New Years Eve?

I sat up, pulling her up onto my lap. I wrapped my arms around her small frame, pulling her into an embrace. She placed a light kiss against my temple.

“ Happy New Year, sweetheart.”

I ignored the way my heart jumped in my chest or the warmth that spread throughout my body.

I only focused on the song softly playing in the background —

_We’ll take a cup of kindness yet_

_For Auld Lang Syne_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. i am overwhelmed by the responses i received, to the point i actually felt bad. i debated with continuing or just leaving it alone and decided that i'll continue the story, but the updates will be sparingly. 
> 
> i wrote the first four chapters of part ii before i decided to quit on this story. but because the remaining half of the story is still in spec narrative, i will be slowly working on it since it'll be low on priority.
> 
> honestly i am so happy that you all did enjoy this story and i feel bad for abandoning it on you all. i should have not jumped to conclusions. i will be responding to all individually soon and i hope you guys forgive me for jumping the gun. thank you so much.


	12. part ii : chapter ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an offer he can refuse

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part ii : chapter ii**

Amilyn Holdo, with her gray hair pulled up into a twist and her black turtleneck dress making her neck look longer than normal, always reminded me of a stuffy librarian who lived with a bunch of cats. No husband, no kids, just an apartment full of cats, books, and a bitterness towards the lover that left her.

The way she looked at me unnerved me. I was awkwardly holding a paper bag of groceries I had picked up from the corner store, just on my way back home after a day at the office with Poe discussing the itinerary for the next two months. The last person I had expected to run into was her. I was still bitter about our last meeting.

I did not know she took the fucking subway to work.

“ Ah, Ben, long time no see.” She said as she put on her sunglasses. The entrance to the Forty-Second street subway station was crawling with riders coming in and out, passing through the turnstiles with a drop of a token.

“ Yeah.” I adjusted the weight of my bag in my arm.

“ Looks like things are going well over at Vanity Fair?”

“ You can say that…”

She looked over my shoulder and then at me again.

“ Well, I spoke to your mother recently and she sends her love. You should honestly call her one of these days. She misses you.”

I gripped the bottom of the bag. A gnawing feeling at the back of my neck. I should have just left, came up with some excuse, but I stood there and waited for whatever she needed to tell me like an idiot. If she had talked about anyone else other than my mother I would have found an excuse to get away, but she was my weakness and Holdo knew that.

“ I meant to tell you this sooner, but you’ve just been so hard to find these days since the New Year. I guess Poe’s been keeping you super busy?”

“ You can say that.”

She smiled, “ That’s good. I’m glad things are working out for you over there. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know what I managed to get in touch with your Uncle Luke. He said he was interested in the project.” Her smile slightly faltered, the true face emerging from the cracks of her facade. “ He was surprisingly unaware of the whole thing. Did you know that he was in Ireland? I guess not, he said he hasn’t spoke to you in years.”

“ It’s like you said, I’ve been busy.”

“ Right.” She paused for a moment. She was reading me as she looked me over with that arrogant smile, “ That’s not what you told me in your interview. It doesn’t matter. You’re still a talented writer. I wish you continued luck on your exclusive. Have a good afternoon, Ben.”

I felt like she had just run me over with a steamroller and, for added effect, reversed it over to make sure she had got that final blow. Yeah, I had to told her that I was keeping up with my uncle, but that was only because she kept talking about him as if he was some journalistic god. If name dropping her idol was going to get me through the door, then why the hell not?

I did not expect her to start looking for favors.

Amilyn walked past me but stopped and turned around as if she had suddenly remembered to drive the dagger into my side. She snapped her fingers, “ That’s right. I had a message from you mother — call her.”

****

I had moved to New York City to get away from my family. I had no intentions on reconnecting with them, not after all the drama. Not after the broken glasses and plates, or the holes in the wall, or the demands for apologies to my father by my mother as if it was my fault for being upset at him being a complete let down.

I closed that door on that part of my life when I came back. I had no intentions on opening it up again. Well, I had hoped to never have a reason to

I knew that I was reopening that door when I called Holdo up that day asking about openings at the magazine. The number was written on a torn piece of legal paper, crumbled from nearly two years of neglect because I had refused to use my mother’s help for anything — even for a fucking name drop. But I was desperate for work and pride had to take a backseat for a paycheck. The work wasn’t coming fast enough, and the Lehman Brothers part of my resume was more of a red mark that kept me from any reasonable job in the city. It was a loaded gun full of questions –

Why did you leave? What happened? Does a Yuppie even know how to write? What is a Yuppie like you applying to be a waiter, you’re a little overqualified, don’t you think?

The economy only worked for the qualified and being overqualified was worst than not being qualified at all.

I came through the door of my apartment and dropped my bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. I went through the mail I picked up on the way in the building, shuffling through the bills until I saw a plane white envelope with POR AVON stamped across my address. I turned the envelope over and saw the return address — or the name at least: Luke Skywalker.

How the hell did he find me?

My uncle didn’t tie himself to any particular location. Whenever he would send letters to us, they’d only have his name and the country he was currently visiting at the time. My father had always joked that my uncle lived more like a fugitive on the run than a journalist. I did not understand it at the time, but thinking about it… Yeah, it did make sense.

Looking underneath his scrawl he was apparently in Ireland just as Holdo had told me. I guess she must have given him my address.

I opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. I had to admit that I was nervous in anticipation of knowing what the letter would contain. I swore him off — he let me go without saying another word to me; the disappointment on his face was more than enough. I held the college ruled paper folded in my hand and contemplated opening up that door.

There were so many questions to be answered.

But I couldn’t do it. I shoved the letter back in the envelope and shoved it in one of the drawers in my desk.

I wasn’t ready. It pissed me off, the more I thought about it.

****

Hux was cleaning his camera lenses when I arrived at the testing kitchen that was located within Condé Nast building. The kitchen was used for all the publications; chefs would be brought in to cook recipes that were featured in the magazines. It would double up as a photo shoot for the food, and then whatever left that was edible would be up for grabs by the staffers — all it took was one call up to the floor and it was a stampede of hungry interns and secretaries for cakes and tarts.

Stepping back into the kitchen felt like wearing an old pair of shoes. It had been months since I was assigned a food column, then suddenly Dameron had tossed this assignment on my lap with some excuse that he couldn’t find anyone else willing to eat seven different ways of roasted chicken.

“ Do you know how impossibly hard it is to take pictures of food?” Hux asks as he places a camera lens in a hard case.

I walk by the counter of plated chicken, looking at each one, “ Not that hard, I’d guess.”

“ It’s _extremely_ difficult and I _hate_ it.”

I couldn’t tell the difference between the plates of food. They all looked the same to me — roasted chicken with vegetables on the side. This was for the Easter, well, spring issue that was due to come out next month. All I needed to do was try the dishes and hype up the appeal to some housewife to try it on their own family.

Again, I should have been the last person to write this article.

Hux closed his camera lens case and wasn’t modest with the noise he made as he picked it up off the counter. I looked up at him and he only gave me a cheeky grin that I could only read as trouble. He picked up the other case containing his cameras and made his way over to the door. He leaned against the frame and I knew at that moment he was planning on starting something.

“ You haven’t been hanging out with us lately.”

“ I never hang out with you.”

It was not a lie. I don’t hang out with people. I meet with them, have a lunch with them, and maybe if they’re lucky I’ll even have a drink with them — non alcoholic of course. But hanging out? No, never.

“ That’s true.” He shifted his weight. “ But you really should start now.”

“ Why?”

“ We’ve been getting invited to some industry parties and there’s a certain someone of particular interest that also goes to these same parties and, well…”

And there he went — stirring the pot.

“ No.”

“ Do you know the gold mine of drama you’d be witness to if you went?”

“ No, Hux.”

I knew what he wanted. Poe had also been bugging me about going to those parties. I guess figuring out ways to get me closer to Rey was their pillow talk. There were a lot of things people could talk about in bed — their relationship, their jobs, hell even the news but conspiring ways to get dirt on a model wasn’t high on the list. In fact, it wasn’t on the list because things like that don’t belong in the bedroom.

Hux clicked his tongue, “Something has changed about you. I think I know why, but I’m not too sure.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You were desperate to work on this story and now you’re dodging every opportunity I’ve thrown at you over these last few months. It’s just odd.”

I picked up a fork and poked at one of the chicken breasts.

“ I’m not a stalker,” I said as I picked up the piece and brought it to my mouth. “ I’m a professional.” I bit a piece off. Cold and dry. I quickly swallowed it, not giving Hux the luxury to see me spit it out.

“ Keep telling yourself that,” He scoffed before leaving me alone in the kitchen.

I did not know what he had meant then, and I should have paid more attention to him. I was too focused on hiding my relationship that I was blind to the writings on the wall.

I began to try the dishes laid out on the counter, forgetting the conversation I just had and agonizing over the dry, cold texture of the over cooked chicken. I had not made it through the third plate before I heard a whistle coming from the door. I looked up and saw Poe waltzing into the kitchen with a carefree saunter. I sighed and carded my fingers through my hair in preparation for phase two of their attack.

“ Solo,” Poe said. “ Enjoying the food?”

“ No.” I wiped my mouth with a paper towel. “ Is there something you want?”

“ Well, I do have something that I _need_. A favor, actually.”

Poe was standing in front of me, the counter the only thing separating us. He reached for one of the meals, picked off a caramelized carrot, and plopped it in his mouth.

“ I’m out of favors.”

“ Oh, no, no, no. You see, you owe me a lot of favors and only I can say when you’re out of favors. Understand?”

Despite the laid-back expression, his tone was anything but. If I had known that convincing him into allowing me to do this series on Rey was going to have me indebted to him, I would have never brought it up to him. Poe was a passionate guy but he wasn’t aggressive — that was usually Hux’s area of expertise.

Obviously they were teaming up on me. I had created a monster.

“What is it?”

“Tomorrow night Jonathan Snoke is hosting a party. It’s invitation only and we’ve been invited — which means you gotta go.” He picks a cherry tomato from the salad. “She’s gonna be there and if there’s anything I’ve learned from these parties is that everyone becomes a hot fucking mess.”

I remembered the last party I went to with Poe and how that night ended. I did not want to repeat it.

But it wasn’t like I had a choice.

Poe ate the tomato and walked out of the kitchen, obviously satisfied with whatever expression was on my face.

****

Back in the day when I was a mess of an early twenty-something fresh out of university, newly employed at one of the biggest financial management companies on Wall Street, clubs were a thing of loud disco music and bright strobe lights pulsating rapidly to the racing heartbeats of a bunch of coked out yuppies and the women that flocked to them. Time did not exist when my body was just pumped with alcohol and lines of coke. All I knew was that I walked in at night and stumbled out when the sun’s rays began reflecting off of the high-rises of Manhattan. Sometimes I barely made it home without vomiting all over the sidewalk, and other times I woke up in somebody’s bed, completely naked and absolutely hung over.

I used to enjoy it. Conquests were a badge of honor, coke made me feel good, and alcohol let me forget the pressure of meeting end of month quotas and meeting commission goals. But let me stress that I _used_ to enjoy it – it’s not much fun when you burn out at twenty-five and had nothing to show for it.

Four years later and nothing’s changed. The music has gotten louder, brighter, but the lights were still bright and wild. The drugs never left. The yuppies were bolder than ever, and the women loved the champagne bottles and the fifty-dollar bills that rain down on them in the VIP booths. I nursed my lime and club soda in one of VIP booths in the back of the club, watching the chaos with a lump in my throat and an itch to just leave.

The last time I was at a club, I ended up in a fight that had me locked up overnight with a sprained wrist and blood all over my shirt. Two months of community service and the disappointment of my parents was the consolidation prize for giving the guy a busted lip and a broken nose. I could still hear him as I watched the dance floor. My fingers gripped the glass in my hand.

“ My God, Benjamin, you need to lighten up.” Hux drawled over the loud music. “ You seriously look like you’re gonna kill somebody.”

“ Yeah, Solo. We’re all friends here, you know. Chill.” Poe added.

I looked at the two who sat next to each other adjacent to me in the booth. They were dressed in their best – Armani suits, gold chains, and gelled back hair that looked that they had stumbled out of the shower. The two of them were sitting awfully close – though, it wasn’t like that at the start of the night. As the drinks kept coming, their inhibitions gradually said fuck it and left for the night. I never would have taken Hux to be a sloppy drunk, but the man was a sloppy drunk.

I grunted and took a sip from my watered down drink.

Poe reached into his jacket and pulled out a small pouch of cocaine. He wiped down the table and poured the powder onto the surface.

“ I think,” Poe began as he reached for his wallet and pulled out a credit card. “ We should liven things up a bit and really have some fun.”

“ Agreed.” Hux said then scooted closer to Poe to the point that they were hip to hip. “ We should have done this sooner.”

“ Ah, but we needed to get warmed up, you know?” Poe turned to face Hux and smirked and I could have sworn Hux nearly made a noise. “ Get the juices flowing…” He began to cut it into lines.

It wasn’t anything new to me but seeing Poe and Hux snort up lines of coke was still a surreal experience none the less. I never was privileged to witness the debauchery of my boss and coworker, but alas nothing was off the tables in the eighties. So, I sat there and watched them get high off of the coke Poe had managed to score from someone like an awkward third party. Poe did offer me the one little line that was left on the table after the two had consumed the other four, but I naturally declined.

“ You only live once, Solo.” Poe nasally said as he wiped his nose.

I gave him a tight smile. “ The last time I did a line I ended up knocking a guy out.”

“ Fair enough.”

Hux cut the line and snorted it, leaving the rest for Poe to finish off. Things were only going to go downhill from here. I get up and mumble something about going to the bar, but Poe is whispering something into Hux’s ear, and Hux is obviously too flushed to even notice me standing over them. If they were sober, Poe would not be this open, that much I knew for certain. But the privacy of a VIP booth and drugs will do wonders to even the tightest conservative.

Once Poe started leaving wet, open mouth kisses against the juncture of Hux’s ear and jaw, I took that as my queue to get the fuck out of there. What a way to come out the closet, I guess.

I doubt he’d remember the next morning and I would be left with the constant visual in my mind of those two making out like two drunk sluts at a bar.

The party was filled with beautiful, rich people and influencers. No matter where I looked, every corner of the suffocating space had some group of people fucked up on liquor and drugs, laughing and talking loudly about absolutely nothing meaningful. It was only March, and it felt like the middle of summer with how packed it was. I forced myself through the crowd of people, finding the bar at the other side and raising my hand in the air to get the bartender’s attention.

I leaned against the bar, putting my glass on top and told the guy my order – tonic with lime – and observed the chaos. I thought I’d see the creepy old man, but Snoke was no where to be found. Was he like some Gatsby, throwing parties yet never physically there enjoying them? I dropped a tip into the jar and picked up my tonic.

“ Mister Solo, are you busy?”

I turned around and saw the Robot. Despite the chaos surrounding us, he was ever the professional in his black suit, well combed hair, and absolutely sober. I took a sip from my drink and shrugged my shoulders.

“ No. Why?”

“ Mister Snoke has been expecting you. Follow me.”

Since when was the president of the First Order Agency wanted to meet with me? I couldn’t help but tense up as my mind went over the various reasons why that man would want me, and all of them all lead to one person – Rey.

Did he know? There was no way he could have known about us. We were damn near neurotic in covering our tracks. A hotel in Jersey City or a rental car parked somewhere in Connecticut, off the highway. It was shameful to the degree at which we arranged our hook ups, but there was honestly no other option. If someone spotted us, that would be it. Game over.

I reluctantly followed the short annoying bastard through the party, past a door, and up a flight of steps. Immediately the loud music and conversation had been reduced to nothing but muffled noise and I could actually hear myself think again. We came to a door and he opened it. On the other side was a room with black leather couches, a small open bar of top shelf liquor, and a glass window that showed the dance floor below.

“ Ah, Ben Solo, finally we meet again.”

And the Great Gatsby himself. No wonder I couldn’t find him in the club, he was sitting at a desk looking down on us like subjects to a king. The Robot left us alone in the room, closing the door. I had seen situations like this in movies – the protagonist enters the office of the evil crime boss and is forced to make the deal of his life.

“ Uh, yes.”

“ Are you enjoying yourself?”

“ I’m not a party guy.”

Snoke chuckled from his seat. He reminded me of a Hugh Heifner, except older and far creepier. His odd face was too much a distraction, the way his wiry fingers drummed against the desk made the hairs on the back of my neck stand. If the Devil were human, he would be this man sitting at that black desk in front of me.

“ Where are you from?”

“ Connecticut.”

“ What school did you go to?”

“ Dartmouth.”

Snoke hummed, obviously impressed. I guess he didn’t come across too many Ivy League graduates. He slowly stood up and walked over to me. I subconsciously took a step back.

“ Your family is the Skywalkers, correct? Your family are oil barons – your great-grandparents had founded oil fields in California.”

“ _Were_ oil barons.” I corrected.

The market crash of twenty-nine wiped my grandfather – both figuratively and literally. It was like a dark secret no one spoke about in my family, to the point I did not even know my relation to him until I was enrolled at Dartmouth and some random professor of history started badgering me about my family tree.

But that didn’t matter – all I wanted to know was how in the hell did he know that? It wasn’t common information. Someone would have had to do some serious research to figure that one out, especially since my mother was adopted out at a young age. Whatever money my family did have was from her adopted parents.

“ Oh? I did not know that.”

“ It doesn’t matter.”

“ Well, it means you’re from good stock. The Skywalker family were great industrialists. Intelligent. Witty. Gifted – ”

“ Also, insane.” I cut him off. “ Did you know my grandfather killed his wife? Choked her to death. Thought she was having an affair with his _dead_ best friend. Well, he didn’t know he was dead because he had lost his goddamn mind after the market crash.”

Snoke’s smile faltered slightly and I sort of took a moment of pride in breaking his bubble. He stood in front of the open bar and took a bottle of brandy. He poured himself a glass while he continued to make small conversation.

“ Regardless of the unfortunate circumstance, you still come from good stock. A lot of potential you have,” He put the bottle down. “ Talented writer as well. You know, I heard about your predicament at the magazine.”

“ Did you?”

He turned around and took a sip. “ Yes. You want to write things that excite you. I understand that feeling of doing something that does not excite you.”

I did not say anything as I watched him slowly walk to one of the couches in the room. He leaned his weight against the back of one of them.

“ I can give you want you want, Ben.”

I blinked.

“ Say what?”

“ I have this city in the palm of my hand. The television and movie studios, the magazines, the newspapers… All of it. Just one call and I can get you whatever you want.”  

I felt a chill run up my spine and I finished my glass of tonic to push the dread back down. He bothered me. He disgusted me. I wanted out of that room. Whatever he was offering had a catch – there was always a catch. I wasn’t going to set myself up and end up like another one of his mindless drones.

I focused on the dance floor again and saw Rey on the dance floor. I had not seen her all night up until that point and I had to refrain from reacting to how beautiful she looked in her backless blue sequin dress that hung to her curves and reflected the disco lights like sunlight on a river. She looked like she was having so much fun.

“ I see you have compassion for her.” Snoke said. I quickly looked at the old man.

“ What?”

“ My Rey.”

I scoffed, shaking my head, “ I don’t have compassion for anyone, least her. Ask anyone – they’ll say I’m miserable and enjoy it that way.”

Snoke finishes his brandy. “ You should consider my offer.”

“ I am happy with what I got.” I put the glass down on one of the tables next to me and started walking backwards towards the door. “ I need to go. I have to finish up an article for print.”

“ My offer still stands.”

I left his private office and made my way back to the club below. I took a quick glance at the VIP booth that I had spent most of the night at and saw Poe and Hux making out like two horny teenagers. I thought they took that shit to the bathroom, but I guess vodka and coke would make anyone act stupid. I felt fingers wrap around my wrist and I turned around to see Rey grinning at me, pulling me towards her. I quickly glanced at the tinted window on the second floor. Without a doubt in my mind Snoke was watching us.

“ Ben! I’m so glad you’re here! Let’s dance!” She said above the music. I shook my head and pulled my hand away.

“ Not in the mood to dance.”

She tried to grab for my hand, but I instead grab her arm and pull her towards me. She gasps and I could smell the alcohol. She was hammered. I leaned in and whispered against her ear, “ Let’s get out of here.”

I don’t give her a moment to register what I said. I am pulling her off the dance floor as quick as I can. I spot the doors leading to the kitchen and go through the kitchen and directly to the back exit. We step out onto the back alley and I let her go. She leaned against the brick wall as I paced back and forth.

He knew. There was no mistake in my mind. He knew.

Rey rested a hand against her chest – I had not noticed the low V-line dip of the dress. She licked her lips and chuckled.

“ Here? That’s where we’re doing things now?”

I shook my head, “ No. I don’t… I’m not in the mood.”

“ Then why did you drag me out here.”

I stopped pacing and held my hand out. She looked at it for a brief moment and then intertwined her smaller one into mine. I pulled her into an embrace and buried my face into her hair, breathing in that sandalwood shampoo. She relaxed into me and I wrapped my other arm around her small, narrow waist.

“ Let me take you home.” I whispered.

She whined softly and tried to pull away, but I held her close. I didn’t want her here – not at this party, not with that man.

“ Sweetheart, let me take you home.”

Rey stopped moving, “ He’ll know I’m not here.”

“ No, he won’t.” I pressed a kiss against her crown. “ No, sweetheart, he won’t.”

****

Finn had thought I drugged her when I brought her to his place, but Rose ignored her husband’s complaints and took Rey in, guiding her up the stairway to their apartment. It was just us two standing on the stoop of his apartment building. Me, in charcoal colored slacks and a maroon dress shirt and him, in sweatpants and an old T-shirt that said Daytona Beach Spring Break ’82.

“ What happened?”

“ Snoke happened.” I replied.

Finn nodded as if everything made all the sense in the world. He sighed exasperatedly and scratched the back of his head.

“ Why not her place?”

“ I felt as if she would be better here than at her place, and the party was gonna end bad with the amount of drugs that people were taking. I just…” I sighed, carding my fingers through my hair. “ She deserves better.”

Finn looked at me as if he was trying to find something. Was it sincerity? Did I seem sincere enough to him? He gave me a pat on the shoulder and squeezed it.

It was like he was finally giving me his approval.

“ Thank you, Ben.”

No, thank you for not giving up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your support. i really do appreciate it! and so, the plot now thickens. also, yes, gingerpilot confirmed. whoops.


	13. part ii : chapter iii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the past is the catalyst

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part ii : chapter iii**

“ Don’t look at me that way.” Hux snapped at me from across the conference room table. He drummed his fingers pensively as he glared at the glass door. I cocked an eyebrow, a little bemused at his snippy attitude that morning. I had an idea as to what he was pissed off about, but that had happened over a week ago. I didn’t even think they had even remembered that night.

“ What are you talking about.” I said anyway. I was bored and sometimes I liked poking a bees nest every now and then.

“ Whatever you’re thinking — “

“ — The whole cocaine and tequila makes you a cockslut thing?” I finished with a snort and Hux’s jaw dropped. He had become so flustered, I thought he would turn into a tomato. “ Yeah, I know about you two. You guys aren’t that subtle at all.”

His mouth closed and the shock was replaced with anger. Not his typical, _I’m annoyed with you_ , anger but something different — a defensive anger. He was not happy that the cat was out of the bag and I was in on his little secret.

What difference did it make, though? We all worked in the fashion industry. If I hadn’t run into a few fruits by then something would have been definitely off. There were only a select amount of industries that were accommodating to homosexuals; fashion, cooking, and Broadway. Everything else was personal suicide.

I had no problem with the gays. I was the type of guy that didn’t care what people did behind closed doors just as long as they didn’t try to force it on me. It did not matter who or what you were, if you were trying to force me into something, I was going to react rather negatively to it. It was worst when I was a young, drunk idiot. When I was in college, completely shitfaced at ten in the goddamn morning, a group of Jehova Witnesses came by to run their spin — I pulled out a knife and threatened them with it. They never came back.

I didn’t care about the fact Hux was sucking Poe’s cock. They could have had a sixty-nine in front of me and I would have walked away and found something else to do. But Hux — he was looking at me as if I could, and would have, done something to them.

“ Just so you know, Benjamin, whatever you saw better not leave this room.” Hux hissed, leaning over the table. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Hux was not joking — he was serious. “ I may be a fag that’s comfortable with my sexuality, but Poe isn’t. He cares about the bigots and their opinions, and he’s worked way too damned hard to get where he’s at today. So don’t you dare open your mouth about what you saw at that party, understand?”

I nodded slowly like a child that had been reprimanded. I had never seen Hux so upset before. Usually his moods were bastard or annoying bastard, but those moments were always to be taken lightly, like some attention seeking moment. That man who sat before me wasn’t seeking attention.

He was being genuine.

“ Armitage, look,” I began. I rarely used his first name and if I did, which was rare, I was being serious. I scratched my head and looked for the right words, “ I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize you two. Trust me.”

He shifted in his seat and didn’t say anything. I knew then it wasn’t some type of fling for them, there were feelings involved.

“ You love him… then. I guess.”

“ Yes.” He sighed, looking at his hands. “ I do.”

“ How long… if you don’t mind me… asking.”

I was surprised that Hux even answered me, “ Three and a half years.”

“ Does he know that I know?”

Hux shook his head, a small sardonic smile on his lips, “ You know how he gets. He parties and parties until he blacks out and doesn’t remember. I think he does it so he can ignore the stigma and be open with me in public.” He paused, as if he caught himself, and cleared his throat, “ Anyway. Enough of this.”

There were a lot of words that were left unsaid. I knew what he could have told me — it was written all over his face — the pressure of being two gay men in the eighties, one completely out in the open and the other  deep in the closet, and that constant pressure of trying to be a couple during a time that shamed them for it. Hux obviously loved that annoying bastard, enough to the point he was willing to play secret lover.

I could have made fun of him for it, but even I had my limits.

I knew what it was like to not want someone encroaching on my personal life.

Poe had sauntered into the conference room a few minutes later with a binder in hand and his usual carefree attitude. He looked at us and raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t a stupid man and I was pretty sure he knew that something had transpired just before his arrival. I only wondered if he knew it was about him.

*****

I liked Rose.

She was a breath of fresh air, a literal rose in a field of weeds. She was soft, even bubbly at times, but she also had her thorns. It was when Finn pricked himself on them that the man would be reminded of how tough she really was. She did not let anyone underestimate her by appearance. I was almost envious of her ability to be in such control, to have so much confidence and exult that confidence on others.

We were sitting in their kitchen, she having prepared coffee for Finn and I, and decided to join us this time on our discussion. It had been two weeks since the party and I had not heard back from Rey, and Finn had conveniently called a few days after I dropped her off, leaving a quick message on my answer machine that I had ignored on purpose thinking it was a bill collector or Poe. The message wasn’t urgent sounding, but any voice message ending with “we gotta meet” means something needed to be talked about.

“ I heard you’re a journalist,” Rose said behind her mug that had ‘World’s Best Wife’ written on it, “ is it just fashion or do you cover other things?”

“ I don’t know anything about fashion. My focus is on socioeconomic and political issues.” I said. She raised an eyebrow, almost judgmental, and I internally winced. I must have came off a bit too defensive. “ Sorry, it’s what I used to do.”

She chuckled and drummed her fingers against the mug, “ It’s okay. I can tell that fashion isn’t your thing. Just found it interesting you’re working for Vanity Fair.”

“ I take what I can get as a writer.”

“ I very much am in agreement with you on that.” Rose said before taking a sip from her coffee.

“ Rose here works for NBC as a production assistant for their news department.” Finn said. I wouldn’t have denied that my interest had suddenly perked up at the mentioning of NBC.

“ Really? That’s amazing.” I picked up the mug of coffee, “ How’d you get the job?”

“ Straight from college. Internship to hire. My degree is in mass communication. Just an associates but the internship helped.”

“ That’s where I met her, as a NBC Page. Once my eyes fell on her in that blue suit with the name tag, I was gone.” He grinned. “ Had to make her my wife.”

Rose reached for him and rubbed his arm, sighing lightly, “ Such a silly romantic.”

See those two interact was surreal for me. I had never really experienced a normal, functioning marriage where both partners were mutually in love with each other. My parents were a hot mess, a passionate affair my mother had in rebellion against her politician dad. I guess they were in love, but that was before I came along, unplanned.

That whole display in front of me — that was something new.

“ So, what was it that you wanted to talk about?” I tried changing the subject.

“ It’s about Rey,” Finn said, like she was some kid that always got in trouble. I nodded and braced myself for whatever he was going to tell me. “ I just wanted to say thanks for dropping her off here. She was definitely inebriated and I only could imagine what would have happened had she stayed. I had my doubts about you but you’ve proven yourself. You’re good in my book.”

“ Like I said, I’m not trying to hurt her.”

“ I know, I know.” He started twisting the mug in his hands. “ Which is why I think I should tell you the truth about her… It’s obvious you two are involved… might as well know who you’re sleeping with.”

I laughed, but it was shallow, “ There’s nothing going on.”

“ She was whining for you all night,” Rose said matter-of-fact, “ Missed you, something about wishing you were in bed with her cause she was cold….etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. It’s obvious.”

I ran a hand down my face with a groan, “ Okay. Lay it on me.”

I had expected her to be from a decent background. Not like picket fences or anything to equivalent of that in the U.K., but at least something normal — not orphanages. Not social workers. None of that matched who she — who I thought she was. I leaned back in the chair and listened silently to Finn as he told me that Rey Niima had essentially came from nothing.

“ Her last name is Johnson. Niima was something Snoke made up for her when he decided to take her in.”

“ What do you mean?”

Finn scratches the side of his face, “ Prior to Snoke, Rey was a street rat, doing petty crimes for a guy named Unkar Plutt, some small time crime lord on the east side of London. Disgusting fat fuck, from what she told me. She had to have been sixteen at the time, but she had tried to rip Snoke off, or at least targeted him… she didn’t expect the old creep to have an entourage.

“ She got caught, and he gave her an ultimatum — work off what she tried to steal or get arrested. Naturally, she took the offer. Snoke cleaned her up and realized the girl had potential and, well, here we are.”

“ How do you know all of this? Did she tell you?”

“ Hah, I wished she had told me,” Finn said dryly, “ I was there. I worked for The First Order. That’s how we met.”

That was not something I had expected to hear. Finn used to work for The First Order. He had known Rey before she was Rey Niima, the model, and was there for her rise into a supermodel. That’s why he was so protective of her. That’s why he didn’t trust me in the beginning. He had seen it happen over and over again.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense why Rey was so secretive about her past — why no one could find anything on her. For Snoke, she was the perfect vanity project. No family, no name, nothing but a pretty face and a blank canvas. He created her, and she was indebted to him for it.

“ Fuck.”

“ Exactly.”

“ So you’re saying that Snoke owns her.”

“ Not in the way you might be thinking. He has made her dependent on him — she fears him — but she also feels indebted to him because of the life she now lives. To go from squatting in worst parts of London to sleeping on Egyptian cotton sheets at the Ritz Carlton is pretty hard to turn away from. Even I was blind to the truth for a moment.”

“ Then he met me.” Rose said, reaching for her husband’s hand.

“ Rose made me see the truth. I got out. I tried to get Rey to come with me, but she was too far gone at that point.”

“ How did she get hooked then?”

“ How else do you control someone?” Finn squeezed his wife’s hand. “ That’s why I do this. I help others in dire straights, get them back on their feet, give them a second chance at life. I do it for her… hoping that one day she’ll come through that door and let us help her finally be free.”

I felt inadequate as I sat at the table, like I was nothing more than the countless of people weaving in and out of Rey’s life, constantly taking from her and never giving anything in return. I had been so angry at myself, but beyond that anger was a growing fury at the man who had been at the head of it all.

I wanted to destroy Snoke. I wanted to destroy his empire. I wanted to take his prized possession away and set her free.

“ Ben,” Finn said, and I look at him. “ Don’t… let this eat alive. I’m telling you this because she loves you and… I think that you have the power to save her. She won’t listen to me but I’ll be damned sure that she would listen to you. You’re her only hope.”

****

I debated calling her. I had not seen nor heard from her since the party and that was almost three weeks ago. I knew that what we had was casual, but there was something eating away at me that kept telling me that it wasn’t casual, that there was more to it than either one of us was willing to admit.

Beatrice filled my cup of coffee without even asking. It had been a year since I had last stumbled into this diner, and yet nothing had changed. Beatrice still looked plump, with her heavy makeup and permed hair. But she had noticed a change in me.

“ You look like you’ve aged a decade since I last saw you, Solo.” She remarked when I first stepped into the diner. I rubbed my chin and glanced at my reflection in the chrome lining behind the counter. Maybe… maybe I did.

I sat at the booth that I had once made my daily home prior to Rey. I looked outside the window and watched as the rain fell, reminding me of the night that I had at that terrible restaurant, which had recently closed, and the moment I had first saw her picture in that beat up issue of Vanity Fair I had used to carry around like a goddamn Medal of Honor.

This was were it had all began.

I could have called her but maybe…

“ I knew I’d find you here.”

I looked up and saw Poe standing in front of me in his overcoat sprinkled with rain drops and damp, curly hair.

“ How’d…”

“ I was in the neighborhood, saw you from across the street. Figured I’d stop by and say hi.”

“ The odds of that happening…”

Poe chuckled, “ Don’t tell me the odds, Solo.”

“ My old man would say that a lot.”

“ I’m not gonna take up much of your time but I’ve been in talks with Snoke for a few weeks now, since the party, and he wants you to join Rey in Milan — he wants that photo shoot to be the focus of the May issue.” He pointed his fingers at me and winked, “ So, hey, free trip to Italy!”

I picked up my cup of coffee, “ Oh, joy.” I deadpanned before sipping it.

“ Also, you’ll be flying to L.A. next week to cover Rey’s table read for the May issue as well.”

I put my cup down and sighed, “ Okay. Anything else?”

“ No, though Snoke _really_ likes you. It’s almost like he’s trying to scout you. I don’t know what you did but keep it up. This is just gonna be great business for the department.”

Poe left as quickly as he had came. I watched as he ran across the street, covering his head with his coat from the rain. He rounded the corner and was gone from my sight. Where to, I didn’t know. It was damn near ten o’clock at night on a Thursday — for all I knew he probably was going to Hux’s studio. It was only ten blocks away, if I recalled correctly.

So, I was off to exotic locations with Rey. I guessed I didn’t need to worry about calling her.

The only worry I had now was knowing Snoke was trying to get to me. I finished my coffee and called Beatrice over for another fill.

When I got home, I had barely made it back dry. The rain was cold and miserable, and I could barely feel my toes in my shoes or my finger tips. I slowly ascended the walk up and then I saw her sitting in front of my door in jeans and a plain white tee.

“ Rey?” I said as I stepped onto my floor. She looked up and smiled at me.

“ Hey, Ben.” She waved.

“ What are you doing here?”

“ I wanted to,” she stood up and wiped her hands on her jeans, “ see you. It’s been a good while.”

“ Yeah It has.” I fished for my keys out of my jacket and unlocked my apartment. We stepped inside without a word and I closed the door, locking the deadbolts and police lock.

We stood in the darkness of my apartment, the orange glow of the streetlight casting a sliver of the small space in a warm glow. It stretched across the floorboard, up over my bed, and then bisected us. Light and darkness meeting as one.

She took a step closer, searching for something as she looked at me. I slowly reached for her face and caressed her cheek. She leaned into my touch, and I pushed her hair away from her face with my other hand.

The rain pattered against my window, a steady rhythm that seemed to only heighten the space between us.

I kissed her on the lips.

“ I think…” Rey whispered against my lips, “ I think I want this to be more than casual.”

I didn’t say anything. I let myself fall into her instead. I let her take what she wanted — my kisses, my body — but not my heart.

Not yet.

Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your comments and kudos! the true conflict is now beginning with this story, it took approximately 13 chapters, but hey, it was worth it.
> 
> this was primarily backstory, and short compared to previous chapters, but it needed to be written in order to get the conflict going.
> 
> again, thank you for your comments and kudos and support <3


	14. part ii : chapter iv

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> of the seven deadly sins, lust and envy will destroy a man

 

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part ii : chapter iv**

The movie studio was like another world, every few hundred feet I’d be in Europe or the Midwest or on some random New York street. The backlots were covered with boom mics, gaffes, and camera equipment manned by men in jean shorts and T-shirt’s. There were trailers containing stars and producers driving around on carts from production to production making sure their investments were paying off.

I had imagined myself to be in a lot of places, but this was not one of them. I honestly felt way out my element as I sat in a golf cart being transported to one of the studio offices for the table read.

Having the Robot next to me since I arrived was unexpected. Our relationship had been contentious since the day we met nearly a year ago. He picked me up from the airport, drove me to the hotel, and even made sure to provide me a bottle of water when we arrived at the studio. The Robot had gone from a pain in my side to my call boy, willing to do anything at a moment’s notice.

“ If you need anything, Mister Solo, do not hesitate to let me know.”

Hell, now I was Mister Solo, not some annoying journalist that he was trying to get fired for almost a year. It had even felt awkward to acknowledge him by his name – Mitaka. It was clearly obvious to me that this was all Snoke’s doing. Hux had told me that this man was nothing more than Snoke’s errand boy, and his attitude would change like the direction of the wind if Snoke demanded it of him. People like him were dangerous, and as the golf cart came to a stop in front of the studio offices, I glanced at him knowing that I shouldn’t let my guard down. This wasn’t genuine behavior; this was just him appeasing his master.

We get out of the golf cart and walk inside the building. The lobby walls are white and covered with movie posters, ones currently in theaters and their classic, well known titles. We don’t spend much time in the lobby, the Robot moving straight on to our destination. He still had that uptight walk; stuff and stoic with his planner underneath his arm and his nose in the air.

“ We are about to meet with the director and producers of the film.” The Robot said as we stood in front of a door.

“ Okay.”

The conference room had a long table with a plate of donuts in the center. The Robot had helped himself, already on his third serving by the time the conversation had actually begun. Apparently, they wanted to personally introduce themselves to me after getting word from Snoke about how much he had liked me. The portly producer talked animated about the project, how it was written specifically as a launch pad for Rey’s career. He would occasionally ask the director for his opinion, and like a parrot, he’d repeat what he had said with the same amount of zeal.

Hollywood was full of plastic phonies.

“ So, do you wanna spend the rest of your life writing celebrity gossip or do you wanna do something _big_ with your life?” The produced had asked as he leaned back in his chair.

“ Well, to be honest, I don’t write celebrity gossip. I write about food and lifestyle.” I said. “It pays the bills.”

“You see that face there,” The producer nudged the director. “ That’s the face of someone that hates what they’re doing. That’s the person that has the passion to do something more. Snoke can really pick ‘em out, can he?”

“ Yeah, he can. He really picks ‘em out.”

I glanced at my wrist watch. We’ve been here for one hour shooting shit and nothing of value yet has come of it. I debated getting up, finding some excuse to get out of there, but then I would have been stuck trying to figure out a way out of the studio, and I did not want to get lost on some random soundstage. I glanced at the Robot as he reached for another donut – fucking glutton.

“ About Rey…” I decided to change the topic.

“ Ah, yes, that Rey is something.”

The producer chuckled and rapped his fingers against the table top. Suddenly there was a dread at the pit of my stomach as I began to vaguely remember something that Rey has told me months ago. He ran his fingers through his hair with a content sigh.

“ She has a very talented tongue,” he continued. “ I had not expected it, but man, Snoke definitely delivered quite the prize.”

My hands clenched in my lap and my jaw tightened. There was this sudden wave of anger that had reverberated throughout my body, like an urge to simply lunge across that table and punch the fat fuck in the face. I had to hold it back — it wasn’t like me and her were an item. She wasn’t my girlfriend and we weren’t dating. Whatever we had was nothing more than a fuck buddy arrangement.

I needed to convince myself that it didn’t matter.

It had already happened.

The image of her on her knees between his fat, disgusting legs played in my mind. Did she want to do it? Did she even like it? I reached for the glass of water in front of me that I had ignored for most of the meeting and took a swig. No, she did not… she had came to me that night.

That’s right.

“ I wouldn’t know anything about that.” I said. I forced a tight smile. “ But I’m sure she would be quite talented.”

They laughed like the pigs they were.

****

For all the pomp and circumstance, my hotel room was rather plain. I guess the bucks topped with the accommodations and Conde Nast was fronting those costs. I sat on the full-size bed, my beat up notebook opened in front of me, while my other notes were spread around – loglines from the movie, things the producer wanted me to include in the article, and some character biographies. It seemed less like an article on Rey’s participation in the movie and more like a general fluff piece for the movie itself. It was supposed to be some dark noir, something to break Rey’s sweet girl image and showcase her adult side. They wouldn’t tell me what she was going to do in the movie, I would simply find out at the table read.

I think I had an idea and I did not particularly like it.

I carded my fingers through my wet hair, having just taken a shower to rid myself of the dirt and grime that was Los Angeles. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose and wishing I was anywhere else but here. Sometimes I wondered if my life would have been better had I not pushed Poe for this assignment. It felt like a curse – yeah, there were some good things to come of it, but not without some very terrible things to quickly follow.

I drummed my fingers against my knee as I contemplated the current state of the article. Poe wanted a bomb and I was sitting on one. I could have blown the door on this entire production and reveal what had transpired behind closed doors on one hot Miami evening. Issues would be flying off of the newsstands and Poe would probably be getting a promotion, and perhaps I would finally get a permanent staff position at the magazine. These final issues were a pandora box for me, except I knew what lied inside. The question was if I was willing to take that step forward and actually open it.

There was a knock at my door, and I looked up. It could have been the Robot, but I knew who was on the other side. I got up and answered it to have my suspicions correct.

“ I haven’t seen you all day,” Rey grinned as she held up a paper bag. “ And I just wanted to celebrate with you for tomorrow.”

I stepped aside and let her in, closing the door softly behind us. She walked over to the dresser and put the paper bag down.

“ Do you think we should be celebrating right before a table read?” I asked as she reached inside the bag.

“ Why not? I think this is the perfect opportunity for some celebrations.” She grabbed the two glasses that were next to the coffee maker and pulled out a bottle of white wine. It was still cool, judging by the condensation that was building up around the green colored bottle. The wine wasn’t expensive, there was no cork and she screwed the top off, filling up the two glasses to the top.

She walked over to me and handed the glass. I took it and we clinked them together before taking sips. She took another sip and tilted her head to the side as she regarded me with those hazel eyes. Her hand reached for my hair and she curled a lock around her index finger.

“ You took a shower.” she said idly. I grunted in acknowledgement. “ I like this look. It makes you look wild.”

I chuckled, honestly caught off guard by the admission, “ Wild? Uh, okay. If you say so.”

I walked over to the bed and gathered my mess of papers with one hand while I nursed the drink with my other.

“ You’re always brooding, but it’s kind of like a more… depressing kind of brood, you know? But this… this is actually quite sexy. I like it.”

“ I’m a writer, Rey. I don’t do sexy.” I downed the rest of my drink and put the glass down on the night stand to free up my hand. I took my things and walked over to the other side of the bed, throwing them into my suitcase and closing it. I did not need her knowing about what I’ve been writing about – what I haven’t published in the magazine.

“ But the sweatpants and t-shirt is, well, it can do something to a girl.”

I turned around and watched as she looked at me, her glass resting against her lower lip. Yeah, she was definitely in higher spirits than usual. She finished the glass of wine and went to fill the glass up again.

“ I’m honored that my sweatpants are doing something for you.”

She filled my glass as well and left the bottle at the bedside table. I had thought that I was overdoing it, that I was beginning to fall back into a trend of bad behavior that I had thought I left far in the past, but I shoved those thoughts in the back of my mind and took that glass of wine in my hand. It was wine – it wasn’t like it was hard liquor. It wasn’t like I was in a club trying to get smashed.

I was with Rey and I had far better control than I did then. I could control myself and this situation.

“ They’re doing a lot for me.” she walked up to me and I could feel the heat radiating off of her body, could smell that damned shampoo off of her hair. She leaned forward and pressed her lips softly against the corner of my mouth.

“ Rey,” I said lowly. “ You got a lot of stuff going on tomorrow. We don’t need to do this now.”

“ When was the last time we saw each other?”

I took a sip from my glass, “ Last week.”

“ Too long, in my opinion.”

I laughed. I legitimately laughed because of the way she said it. Rey blinked, startled by my sudden outburst. I took a step backwards and sat down on the bed, finishing my drink between chuckles as she looked at me as if I had grown two heads. This probably was the first time she had ever seen me genuinely laugh. I grabbed the bottle and poured another glass.

“ You know,” I said, topping it off, “ I don’t know why I found that so funny. Perhaps you should start buying more of this cheap stuff. I’ll probably find more things funny.”

She pursed her lips and took the bottle from me. “ I didn’t find it funny.”

“ Oh, please, continue pouting, it makes you look cuter.”

Rey finished her glass with a huff and put it down, not before taking a swig from the bottle. She put the bottle back down and put her hands on my thighs, leaning forward into my space.

“ I don’t want to be cute, Benjamin,” she said, just a breath’s way from my lips. She pushed my legs apart and got on her knees between them. I looked down at her as she looked up at me, lips wet, cheeks flushed, and a glossy gleam to her eyes.

Her hands rubbed my thighs slowly – up and down, up and down – and I watched with rapt anticipation. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what she wanted to do. It never had started this way, usually I was the one who initiated the first move, but it was clear that she wanted to do this and maybe I wanted to be a bit selfish. Maybe it was the way the strap of her camisole hung off of one shoulder, or the way she licked her lower lip as one of her hands brushed against my crotch.

“ I had been dreaming about doing this for a while,” she said, as she palmed me again. “ Me finally returning the favor.”

“ That’s what this is? A favor?”

“ It can be anything you want it to be.” she pushed my t-shirt up and kissed my lower stomach. “ What do you think this is, Ben?”

I reached for her, brushing her hair behind her ear, out of her face. “ You’re trying to suck me off.”

“ You don’t have to be so crude.” she chuckled as her hands grabbed the waistband of my sweats. She tried to push them down, off of my hips, and I obliged without hesitation. The alcohol was finally flowing, and she had teased me enough to want whatever she was offering. It was almost shameful at how quick I had responded to her – how hard I had gotten, how badly I was leaking, how much I wanted her to just put her mouth there and get me off.

It was all I could think about; just sit there and fuck her mouth.

And, just like that, that’s what had happened. She took me into her mouth and blew me, as I weaved my fingers into her hair and held her there, mumbling dirty, disgusting encouragement. Did it turn her on? Did she like me telling her to suck my cock or how much of a good girl she was? I didn’t know – I really didn’t care.

None of it mattered until I came into her mouth and she slightly gagged when I didn’t realize that I had held her too tight. But she pulled back and still kept sucking, as if she did not want me to feel bad about what I had done.

She let me go, cock falling from her swollen lips, limp and receding like some cheap porn. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sat back on her haunches.

I started thinking of the producer. That fucking producer. Of all the goddamn things I could have thought of at that moment, it had to be that producer and what he said at that meeting – about how talented she was. Was it because the orgasm cleared my head or was it because of the guilt that was quickly creeping into my consciousness? I couldn’t figure out which it was – the longer I looked at her between my legs, my soft and limp cock against my thigh, the more my mind kept going back to Miami.

She did this in Miami.

This is what she did to get the part. This is why we were here in Los Angeles.

I pulled my sweats up, as gracefully as I could manage.

“ I don’t want to do this anymore…” I suddenly whispered, voice hoarse and breathing heavily as I still tried to come down from my high. She looked at me, her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

“ Do what?”

Her voice sounded so fucked. I felt guilty.

“ This.”

“ What are you talking about?”

I slowly got up and reached down, pulling her up by her biceps so that she was standing in front of me. Some of my semen was on the corner of her mouth, and I reached and wiped it away. Jesus Christ, she was worth more than this. I pushed aside her brown hair, fixed the strap of her camisole, and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

“ You’re worth more than this.” I whispered against her forehead. “ And I’m sorry.”

Suddenly she became stone in my hands. But it was the price to pay for the transgression I had bestowed upon her. Rey took a step back and I could not read her expression then, but I was pretty sure that I had hurt her then. I could have kissed her, perhaps even fucked whatever I said out of her mind, like we always did but I just watched as she took a swig of the wine, trying to rid herself of me.

“ You honestly don’t understand, do you, Ben Solo?” she asked me.

“ I think I do,” I replied.

I should have listened to my gut then, but I let her leave me in that hotel room with a half-filled bottle of cheap wine and my thoughts. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, just spend the evening drinking and fucking.

But I had to take the high road.

Because I simply couldn’t get the image of her on her knees in front of that fucking fat fuck out of my head.

****

I did not know what a table read was before I had shown up that one. Even though it was considered to be the first day of production, it was just the actors, screenwriter, and director sitting around a table reading a script – or performing it. Occasionally, the director would chime in with suggestions on how lines should be delivered, but otherwise it was a boring affair.

The script involved a fatal attraction – and Rey was supposed to play the crazed seductress that was torturing a detective that she had an affair with. The producer wasn’t lying when he said the movie would deliver on the goods. Rey would spend nearly a quarter of the movie in some form of nudity; I seriously had doubted that this film was a vehicle for her career, but it rather it being more or less a smut film for the men in the industry that objectified her.

Once the read was over, I saw the producer walk over to Rey when everyone had broken up to get ready to leave for the day. I watched as she greeted him with that smile she gave everyone that she did not know on a personal level – the cheeky, full of teeth grin that warmed the hearts of anyone within a five foot radius of her. He said a few things to her and she laughed. It perplexed me how normal those two were able to act despite what had _happened_. Despite the _truth_ of why she was even there.

I almost felt disgusted.

Or was it jealously?

The producer reached for her wrist and I couldn’t help but tense up. It was reactionary, as if I was her … _lover_. I shouldn’t have cared. There was no reason for me _to_ care. She wasn’t my lover. We weren’t dating. If anything, we were just two fuck buddies that got each other off when we were feeling down. And yet, I sat there in the far-off corner of the soundstage, bridling in jealousy over that fat fucker.

She pulled her hand away, but he steps closer into her space.

I had to get out of there.

I found a stoop to sit on at the back of the soundstage. In front of me were rows of white, unused trailers just waiting to be used for some actor to do blow in and wreck when they had a terrible day on set. I took a long drag from the cigarette I was smoking and exhaled slowly, as if it would stop the shaking of my hands or clear the images of those two in my head.

I wasn’t a smoker. I had quit when I quit the bottle and drugs… but sometimes, sometimes there was always that urge to just get that touch of nicotine in the bloodstream to make the stress go away. And someone always had a cigarette available to bum off of – Got a smoke? Yeah, sure. Don’t even have to spend my own money.

The door behind me opened and I did not bother to turn around and see who it was. For some reason, I had already known who it was.

“ I did not know you smoked.” she observed as she closed the door behind her. I shrugged my shoulders as I sucked in the smoke of the cigarette.

“ I do, occasionally,” I said as I exhaled the smoke. “ It helps with the stress.”

“ So you’re stressed.”

“ Perhaps.”

Rey sat down next to me. She wrapped her arms around her knee and leaned forward, resting her chin on top. I did not bother to look at her, focused on trying to make this Newport Light last as long as possible.

“ You left.”

“ That I did.”

“ Why?”

Another quick, short puff, “ I had to take a piss, then, I suddenly felt the urge to smoke so I found some gaffer and bummed a cig.” I held up the cigarette for emphasis.

 

She hummed but didn’t say anything else in return. We sat there, staring at the brand-new trailers until I was finished with my cigarette. I flicked the butt towards the trailers. It never quit made it to its intended target, just landing short of a tire.

“ Something is bothering you.”

I shook my head, “ No. There’s nothing wrong.”

“ You’re a bad liar.”

“ That’s where you’re wrong, Rey,” I scratched my cheek and looked at her. “ My entire career is all about making up lies. I am the fucking master at telling lies. You, on the other hand, are terrible at judging people’s character.”

She frowned, “ Just because you write for some big name magazine doesn’t make you better than me.”

“ I never once said I was.”

“ Jesus, why did I even bother.”

“ Exactly. Why _do_ you bother?”

Rey stood up and put her hands on her hips. I looked up at her and, wow, she did look intimidating then. I still did not back down, I looked right back as if I was daring her to call me out. I was looking for a fight and she was giving it to me. I had almost enjoyed it.

“ What the fuck is your problem? Ever since you’ve got here you’ve been a fucking asshole.”

“ There’s nothing wrong. I’m totally, and completely, fine.”

“ You’re insufferable.”

“ I’m glad you’ve finally realized what everyone else thinks of me, Rey.” I mocked. “ I’m not a nice guy. I’m an asshole. I make people miserable. _Finally_ , you get it.”

“ Ugh, I can’t honestly do this right now.” she said as she threw her hands up in the air. “ Once you’re done fucking yourself in the ass, I’ll bother talking to you again. Asshole.”

She made sure to give me the finger before stepping inside the soundstage and slamming the door behind her. I ran my hand down my face with a loud groan. Of course, I simply had to fuck that up. It was in my DNA, after all, to always mess up a good thing. But, for some reason, something deep down inside felt as if I was wrong, that I was being petty. I could have fixed it – ran back in there and probably give her a hug, apologize, and maybe – maybe – kiss her until she forgot about this argument.

Instead I sat there on that stoop until the Robot came looking for me to take me back to the hotel.

Once I got to my room, I looked at the bottle of wine that Rey had brought over the night before. It was still half filled and I could have dumped it out in the sink. I could have thrown it out. But I was annoyed, I was frustrated, I was upset and I simply wanted the feeling to go away.

You see, there was a reason why I never did relationships.

Relationships always brought out the worst in people. It could bring out the best in some, but usually, at the end of it all the ugliest of a person would always reveal itself.

There was name for it – that part where a recovering alcoholic slips up and decides to get flat drunk. There was a word for it – started with a r – but I couldn’t bring myself to put that name on it. I drank that bottle until I couldn’t feel that gnawing frustration anymore. Where the only thing I could feel was that regret, that yearning for her, where the only cure for my misery was her body against mine.

So, that’s what I did. I found her room, stumbled into her arms, and cried something about being scared of losing her. Sloppy kissing words of how much she drove me crazy, of how much I _loved_ her, of how much I wanted her to be mine and mine alone. And she took me – that stupid girl took me in – let me between her legs and fuck my misery away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry
> 
> but hey thanks for reading! your comments and kudos make a girl happy <3


	15. part ii : chapter v

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he isn't good at love, but he's gonna try

 

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part ii : chapter v**

Let’s talk about love.

It’s a strange concept, an idea, a description for the way our bodies react to other humans with a sudden rise of dopamine in our brains. It could be romantic, or it could be platonic. It is something we identify as making us feel good — to be in love is said to be the greatest feeling in the world.

People do stupid things when in love. Too much of it and they they will hurt others. They will hurt themselves. They will hurt each other. Love cannot exist without heartache, without pain. My parents made that apparent every waking day of my life.

I’m sure they loved each other very much. I’m sure they loved each other too much — so much so they were always hurting each other, a collision of heated personalities that never seemed to know when to quit. One day they were inseparable like it was the first time they had ever met; morning kisses in the kitchen, jokes at the dinner table, passionate love at night. The next day they couldn’t bare being in the same room; screaming in the living room, leaving the house with a hastily packed suitcase, threats of the police.

Love is a complex thing and I was terrible at it.

It was — no — it is my weakness. Maybe it’s because my parents fucked me up with their chaotic relationship, but I don’t know how to do it right. I let it consume me, drive me to do stupid things; it is almost self destructive. And when I fall out of love, it hurts. It hurts so much that it almost becomes unbearable.

I was afraid.

I was afraid of her. I was afraid of the things I did when I’m with her.

It feels like I’m Icarus, and she is the sun. I fly towards her with my wings of wax, high and higher, until they melt away and I’m plummeting to my death, back to the Earth below.

I did not want to put a name on it. I did not want to admit that these feelings, these thoughts, these urges I had to touch her skin are not anything but love. It was lust — and pity. I felt sorry for her, I sympathized with her. I wanted for the feeling of her strong legs wrapped around my body, her lips against my skin, her warmth consuming me.

But I was so fucking afraid because I knew that I was simply preventing the inevitable.

I loved her and it scared the shit out of me.

Los Angeles was a mess and I could barely remember any of it. It’s easy to simply drink away my fears and ignore the pain. Eventually I was able to forget the producer, forget Miami, and simply allows myself to swim in the drunken euphoria of that night. We fucked and drank and fucked some more until I fell out with her on top of me.

Did I say some things I would have regretted? Probably. Did I wake up to an empty bed, nauseated and with holes in my memory? Absolutely. I was glad to have been scheduled to fly back to New York that afternoon, luckily able to avoid her and that stupid fucking mistake.

But people can’t run forever — even my father had to eventually explain to me why he forgot to show up to my tenth birthday, his face red with shame — and I was about to spend the next week in a foreign country with her again. There was no running away now.

“ So this is where the great maestro lives…”

I had called Finn over. I felt comfortable with him because he could understand the situation. He knew addicts, he knew what to expect, and he knew Rey. I was already packed for the trip to Milan, and I had to be at JFK in another hour or so, but I was desperate and needed to talk to him.

He leaned against door of my small apartment as I sat on the windowsill.

“ Maestros compose music. I write.” I remarked rather dryly.

“ It was a compliment,” Finn scoffed, “ I know now to save the pleasantries.”

“ Ah, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “ I tend to, uh, I’m not good at small talk.”

“ It’s not for everyone. So, you’re off to Italy with Rey for work. Is there something wrong that you needed to speak with me? I mean, all due respect, but we aren’t really friends and the only time you come to me is when it involves her.”

“ Am I really that obvious?”

“ Yeah, you are.” He chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest as I sheepishly carded my fingers through my hair.

“ It’s less about her and more about Snoke.” Finn stopped smiling and I knew I had his attention.  “ He’s been wine and dining me lately, trying to butter me up. He wants me for something but I don’t want whatever he’s offering.”

“ Good. Whatever he’s offering ain’t good. It’s never good.”

“ I know. I also know that if I resist him he’ll take Rey away, and, I don’t think I want that.”

Finn sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, “ So this is serious.”

“ Maybe…” my head dropped and I looked at my bare feet. “ Perhaps. I don’t know. I don’t want to call it anything but… I like what we have and I don’t want to give it up.”

“Man, you two are a mess.”

“ Well, that’s the thing. I know we are a mess. We are probably not even good for each other. And sometimes I seriously wonder if what we have is legitimate, that it’s not just Snoke using her like a marionette to get to me.”

“ Ben, she’s a lot of things but a marionette isn’t one of them. She… is serious about whatever you two have.”

“ That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“ What are you afraid of?”

I chuckled and looked at Finn, suddenly ashamed because I had sold him on a version of me that he trusted with Rey. If he had only known what he had done.

“ That I am not strong enough to be the support that she needs.” I paused, but then I didn’t want to let him linger on what I said, so I followed up, “ What should I do about Snoke.”

“ Look, the guy prays on the weak. If you show your cards he’ll play you. If you want Rey, don’t let him know about it. Don’t let him know anything.”

“ And what if he does?”

“ Then you need to figure out a plan to get the fuck out. And don’t count on her following.”

“ You make it sound so easy.”

“ I’m more of a pessimist than an optimist, but that’s because you can’t trust anyone these days. Especially anyone at the First Order.” Finn glanced at my desk and took notice of the photo of her I had pinned back up. I followed his line of vision. “ Do you love her?”

I sat there, thought about how I should have answered him, “ I don’t know if I can call it that.”

“ If you can’t call it love, then it’s not love. It’s lust and you’re just gonna hurt her in the end. Take it from me — I’m married.”

“ Marriage doesn’t mean shit. Dysfunctional people still get married.”

“ A married _interventionist_.” He smirked at me. “ I’m a professional at reading bullshit artists.”

We both laughed, even though deep down inside I knew I was in no better place than when he had arrived. It felt good to laugh about it, though. It felt like we were normalizing the situation. So we changed the subject, and bullshitted until I had to leave.

****

I fell into the bed, my suitcase discarded by the door, not even giving myself a moment to take in the room. After flying for nearly ten hours, I had finally made it to Milan. I was greeted by a driver at the airport and taken straight to the hotel. I had been here once before with my uncle, so it didn’t feel as strange as it did when I was in Japan, but I was also exhausted and jet lagged.

I rolled onto my side and saw a fruit basket on the bed, wrapped in clear cellophane with an envelope affixed to it with tape. I reached over and unwrapped the basket, taking an apple and bit into it. I pulled the envelope off the wrapper and took out the card inside. I bit into the apple again.

 _Good luck in Milan, Ben Solo_ , the card had said. I looked at the sender. _Jonathan Snoke._

The apple did not taste sweet anymore — I got up, grabbed that stupid fruit basket and tossed it in the trash along with the apple and the card.

Too jet lagged to sleep, and generally frustrated, I found myself walking into the hotel bar on the first floor, looking around aimlessly like the walking dead. I wound up at the bar, ordering a tonic, and when I looked over to my right, I saw Rey sitting at the far end of the bar, staring into a glass of red wine in a simple tan maxi dress. She looked off — detached almost. The way she did when we had first met and she knew that no one was looking.

The urge to comfort her was hard for me to ignore. I could have just left her alone, finished my drink and found some other place to hide as I struggled with my jet lag, but I never paid attention to my gut instincts and made my way over there, tonic in hand.

“ What’s wring, kid?” I asked her as I sat next to her. She startled, putting her hand on her chest and whipped her head around to see me. I only gave her a lopsided grin and she sighed in some form of relief.

“ Oh, Ben. It’s you.”

“ Well, sounds like you’re not excited to see me so I’m just gonna go…” I trailed off, but she placed a hand over my arm and shook her head.

“ No, no. I am. I’m just tired.”

“ Same. I hate being jet lagged.”

“ My body is stuck in New York time. I’ve been here for three days and I still haven’t kicked it.”

“ Wow.”

“ I know. Figured I’d try and have a glass of wine, see if that would put me to sleep, but it’s not working.”

“ How many have you had?”

“ Just the one.”

“ I think you need at least three glasses before it kicks in….”

She chuckled, “ I have work tomorrow. I rather not be shitfaced on the job. Though the idea sounds nice.”

We sat there in a mutual, yet comfortable silence. It had felt nice — no raging emotions, no drama driving us to do stupid things, it had almost felt like the time at the bungalow on New Years Eve. The two of us being normal.

“ I had been thinking about last week in L.A., about how things kind of fell apart,” Rey said, breaking the moment we were sharing. I glanced at her. “ I saw a side of you that I had never seen before. You were just so… off. I wanted to know why.”

I sucked in a breath, fingers drumming against the he shellacked wood counter top, “ I don’t know why.”

“ Why what? Why you were so upset? Why you came to my room drunk?” she shook her head with a light, hopeless laugh, “ Did you even mean what you said that night?”

“ I don’t know.”

She wanted more than I felt comfortable enough to give her. I vaguely remembered what I had said that night, but a drunk can say anything. Or, that’s how I at least tried to compartmentalized it.

“ I miss what we had in Montauk.”

That was something we could have agreed on. I reached for her hand, my fingers lightly brushing against her own. She lets me intertwine our hands together, my thumb lightly caressing, the simple act enough to spark that yearning for something more than casual. The yearning for normalcy.

“ Why don’t we try again?” I said as I looked at our hands.

It was amazing how slow we had taken things, like we were trying to rediscover ourselves, finding the reset button to make it all go away. Each kiss and touch felt like she was trying to remember me, remember this moment of sobriety. I had felt alive then, the experience so much more meaningful, deeper without the cloud of drugs and alcohol.

And when I pressed into her, she gasped and held me tighter, like she was afraid that I’d disappear. But I kissed her on the lips and whispered that I wasn’t going anywhere, and she nodded and buried her face into my neck.

“ I think I love you,” she had said as we laid there on that bed, her on top of me in our post-coital haze, head against my chest listening to my racing heartbeat. I looked up at the ceiling, and mindlessly ran my fingers through her hair, as my mind tried to futilely normalize our situation.

“ I know.” I whispered.

We could be normal, I kept thinking then, we could be normal.

****

They had Rey dressed in expensive couture dresses that seemed to engulf her lithe frame as she stood between the grape vines of the vineyard we were at. We were an hour away from Milan, in the countryside. The sun was beating down on us and I was amazed at how she fought through the heat in those layers of fabric and makeup. I didn’t know what the theme was supposed to be, but I guess it was gonna look good in the magazines and billboards.

There were no other publications here, Vanity Fair was lucky to have the exclusive, but it didn’t seem as if the fashion house or photographer cared. If anything, they thought I worked for the First Order, treating me as if I was apart of Rey’s entourage. I didn’t like the association and corrected them whenever they made that assumption, but it was obvious they didn’t care.

I stood on the balcony of the house that looked upon the rolling hills of the vineyard, watching the photo shoot from a distance. I had wrote some things down, but my notebook was rolled up in my back pocket and I had decided to focus more on the Northern Italy scenery. I would not have the opportunity again, after all. Eventually I would have to interview her, but before then I allowed to let myself relax and enjoy the moment.

“ How has your trip been, Mister Solo?”

The Robot has came up to me, planner in hand, suit impeccable. I grunted in reply, not wanting to disrupt my moment of zen. He placed his hands and planner on the vine covered railing.

“ Mister Snoke hopes that your time here is pleasurable, regardless. He also anticipates meeting with you again to discuss a business proposal that he feels you will very much be interested in.”

“ I’m already contracted out.”

“ Yes, he knows.”

The photographer stopped taking photos and the team swooped in on Rey like a pack of vultures to prepare her for the next set of outfits and photos.

“ I saw you two together,” the Robot said, his voice laced with that familiar snotty tone that I had forgotten he was capable of. “ In the stairwell in New York. I knew you lacked a regard for the rules, but that… was certainly bold of you.”

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“ If you’re gonna sleep with our agency’s most prized asset, at least show some respect and find a room.”

I did not react. It was bound to come out eventually, but would have preferred it on my own terms. Though, I was impressed he had managed to stay quiet about it for that long. The stairwell was almost nine months ago.

“ What do you want? An admission?” I looked at him. “ This isn’t Snoke talking, this is you.”

“ I don’t care if you’re sleeping with her. You’re just another name on a long list of men in this industry that Snoke has delivered to. I just want you to be reminded that she doesn’t belong to you — she belongs to the First Order.” He looked at me.

He was lying. He was trying to goad me into a fight. What other way could you get a man to react than to attack the woman he loved? If I touched him I would be in an Italian jail cell and he would have pressed every charge possible to keep me in there. I was not going to give him the pleasure.

“ If we weren’t in such a public place, I would have made you regret speaking those words.” I said slowly, my voice thick with intent to harm. He swallowed, and I could see the droplets of sweat against his brow, but he stood there none the less. Defiant.

“ I hate everything about you. You have been nothing but a thorn in my side. You may think that you have Snoke wrapped around your little finger, Solo, but I will see to it that you never work again.” he let go of the rail. “ Cause her to stray and you’re done.”

“ I’ll keep that in mind.”

I did not watch the Robot leave. I watched Rey in the vineyard posing for the camera in a yellow, sleeveless dress. She looked so much like the sun, shining in a garden of vines covered in purple fruit. She twirled, she laughed, and she smiled on command.

I gripped the railing and leaned forward, screaming silently in my mind.

After the photo shoot had ended and everyone had wrapped up for the day, I pulled Rey into one of the hallways of the rented villa, pressing a finger to my lip to quiet her. She looked at me questionably and I held her hand, guiding her to an empty room.

“ I want to make this work.” I told her once I was sure that we were alone. “ I want us to put a name on this. I want us to be normal. Can we do that?”

She blinked, “ I don’t understand…”

“ I love you, Rey. I’m not drunk. This isn’t a joke. I love you and it fucking scares the shit out of me.”

“ Ben…”

“ We can end it here. If you don’t want this we can just end it right now.” I licked my lips. “But I don’t want to and I don’t think you want to either.” I held out my hand and shifted as my heart raced and my stomach twisted. I thought I was dying in those moments. “ Be with me.”

She looked at me with so much uncertainty I was afraid she was going to walk away, that she was going to prove everyone right — “ _Please_.”

My voice was desperate. I was pleading. Don’t leave me hanging like this. Don’t walk away.

It felt like an eternity, but she took my hand into her own and I trace my thumb against her palm. It was such a innocent gesture but the gasp we had made and the intensity of the emotions we felt at that moment made it everything but. My fears, my worries, and all my concerns had immediately faded away from my mind. All I could think of was us and only us.

“ I’ve been waiting for so long.” she sighed as the tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. I did not know if she was talking about us or something else. It did not matter much to me at that moment, though. All that mattered was that she was willing to try this thing. This relationship. I wiped her tears away and pulled her into a tight embrace.

Love makes people do stupid things and I was terrible at relationships.

But I was going to make this one work. I had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're at the mid point. just three more chapters left in this part and then we're off to the final, part iii.
> 
> i want to say thank you all those who leave kudos and share their thoughts with me on this story. it really helps me grow as a writer and know if im hitting those beats correctly, that i'm getting the reactions i've intended. 
> 
> this chapter is the shortest chapter, but also is a pivotal chapter so i did not want to fill it up with so much stuff. i had cut a lot out from the spec i wrote.
> 
> part ii is a hard read, and we're pretty much in dark reylo territory at this point, but its a part in their relationship that needs to be told.
> 
> i am working on an "intermission" piece to give more insight into the other characters -- hux and rey -- that will be posted at the end of part ii.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	16. part ii : chapter vi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> like layers of an onion

 

moodboard by reinasolo <3

**part ii : chapter vi**

“ Ben Solo. Fancy seeing you here.”

Phasma gave me a long look as she stood in front of the door of their apartment. She was smirking like there was a joke and I had not been privies to it. In her hand was a silver umbrella, which matched her monotone attire — a grey short sleeved turtleneck and black pants. It made her look taller than I had remembered. I briefly checked to see if she was wearing heels — she wasn’t.

“ I didn’t kn— I came to follow up on some stuff for the final article.”

“ Sure you were.”

I almost said that I didn’t expect her to be there. Whenever Rey would invite me over to the loft, Phasma was somewhere off on a job or out for the night. The way we crept around the model almost felt like two teenagers sneaking behind their parents’ back. I had no idea that she may have known what was actually going on.

Before I could respond, Phasma called over her should announcing my arrival and held open the door. I stepped inside as chuckled on the way out. I gave her a glance, but she never turned around to look at me as she descended the stairway to wherever she was going.

Rey stepped out of the kitchen in an oversized sweater that fell off of one shoulder and a pair of light jeans as I closed the door behind me. She beamed as she saw me and ran over, throwing herself on me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a kiss on the lips before pulling back slightly to look at me.

“ Hi.” she said.

“ Hi.” I replied, a small smile on my lips. She gave me another kiss and untangled herself from me.

“ Does Phasma know?” I said as Rey went back into the kitchen.

“ No, I haven’t told her anything.” I could hear the water running and dishes being washed. “ What did she say?”

“ She said something implying that I was here for something more than work.”

“ Phasma tends to stir the pot a bit, don’t pay her any mind. She doesn’t know a thing.”

I could hear Rey working in the kitchen — the sound of a refrigerator door opening, glasses clinking, a bottle being opened. I followed the sound, into the kitchen and leaned against the counter with my arms crossed as I watched her pour two glasses of a gin tonic.

“ What have you been up to since Milan?” I asked casually.

It had been two weeks since I left Milan, but she had stayed behind for work. After agreeing to put a name on what we had, to admit to our feelings for each other, we did not spend much time together. Other than the night before I left for the States, most of the trip in Milan was spent watching and observing from afar, writing the article, and getting interviews.

International calls were too expensive to keep in touch.

This was the first time seeing her since we officially began our relationship. Once I found out she was back in town, I called her up and asked to see her, and without hesitation she told me to come over. That was three days ago — and now I standing in her kitchen with a gin tonic making small talk.

“ Sleeping.” she said behind her glass. “ I am so exhausted, and I need the rest because I have to fly off to Vancouver in three days for another photo shoot in a place called Whistler.”

“ You’ve been really busy.”

“ Understatement of the year.”  

Rey held her hand out and I took it into my own, intertwining our fingers. Her thumb idly brushed against my own as we just stood there enjoying the simple feeling of our hands together. After a few moments, Rey lead me to the couch and we sat down.

We finished our drinks and brought her feet up, putting them on my lap. I idly began to rub her calf.

This was being normal. I liked the feeling of that moment.

“ I was thinking about my future when I got back. Like, what else could I do once this is all over.”

“ What are you talking about? You’ll be in movies and a millionaire.”

“ Maybe. Truth be told I don’t want to be an actress.”

I raised an eyebrow, “ Why?”

“ It’s one thing to be a face in a magazine, it’s another to be a living, breathing _thing_ on the big screen. I can hide, go to the corner store, and walk this city without people knowing who I am. The movies will take that away.” she leaned into the couch, “ I don’t want it.”

“ I would say drop out but things are never that easy.”

“ They never are…” she sighed.

“ What did you want to be?”

Rey’s lips had curled up into a smile as she looked above in thought.

“ An artist.”

“ An artist? You draw?”

She looked at me, her face aglow with a new vigor that I had never seen before. It was like I had unlocked a hidden door, peering into a world I had not known existed.

“ Oh, I’ve never shown you have I? Wait here.”

She untangled herself from me and jumps off the couch, running to her side of the loft. I found it cute how she lit up, how excited she got to show me her work. I had begun to realize that the things she told me in the interviews were nothing but rehearsed fabricated stories for the publications. The woman walking over to me with a black sketch book in hand and a exited grin on her face was the true Rey.

I took the sketchbook from her once she sat back down and opened it up.

“ Wow. _You_ drew this?”

It was a pencil sketch of an old woman sitting on a bench, bag in hand, with a forlorn expression. The amount of detail was amazing — if I had not known better I would have expected someone else to have drawn it. I was amazed.

“ Yeah. I love drawing. It’s like therapy.”

I slowly flipped through the book, taking note of the quality in her work. There was no way that she could have been this talented based off of what Finn had told me. It was like the work of someone who had gone to art school — it wasn’t amateurish in the least. Most of the drawings were of people in the park — sitting on benches, standing under trees, having conversations… like a people study.

“ You never told me you were an artist.”

“ You never asked.”

“ Fair enough.” I closed the sketchbook, resting it against my lap, “ Where did you learn?”

“ I taught myself,” she said with a shrug, “ When I was a kid I’d just go to the library, cause it was free, and read the art books. I would spend hours practicing how to draw.”

“ Then why are you modeling?”

Rey reached for her sketchbook, “ Because it offers a lot more stability than this.” she stood up and went to put her book away, as she continued talking, “ I was told as a kid that we can’t always get what we want in life. This is one of them.”

“ My old man used to say that a little bit of luck can also go a long way. Never tell him the odds — just go out there and take the risk.”

I did not know why I told her that. My dad was the biggest hypocrite — telling me one thing but doing another. For someone who never wanted to know the odds, he spent a long time simply running away from his problems than dealing with them head on. I guess he told me that so I wouldn’t end up like him.

But that didn’t work out as he had hoped.

Rey carded her fingers through her hair with a sigh as she came back, “ You always know what to say, hun.”

“ With age comes experience.”

“ Whatever you say, old man.”

I pulled her onto my lap and wrapped my arms around her waist.

“ Don’t be like me,” I said softly as we looked at each other. I could count the freckles that brushed her cheeks, see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes; I didn’t deserve to hold such a beautiful creature in my arms. She reached up and held my cheek in her hand, her thumb rolling over my skin tenderly. “ Don’t have any regrets. Do what makes you happy.”

She gave me such a sad smile then that I couldn’t bare it but kiss it away.

****

Poe read the rough draft of the article with an unreadable expression. It should have never bothered me, considering the man was my editor, but the idea of him being my gatekeeper always rubbed me the right way. We were on opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to writing, and half the time it did not even appear as if he cared about what I wrote. But this time he had taken a lot more interest in the article from L.A. for whatever reason.

With a simple ‘hmm’, he put the manuscript down and folded his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair.

“ It’s good. Reads like a paid advertisement for that movie. I’m sure the studio and First Order will be happy.” He looked at me, “ I had expected a bit more… drama.”

“ It’s hard to spin drama when there is none.” I deadpanned sitting in front of his desk.

Poe rubbed circles into his temple with an audible sigh. I guess that wasn’t what he had wanted to hear. He leaned back in his chair and gestured to the two pages of paid word vomit that I had produced.

“ There is one more article left and we have nothing. Nada. Zero of what you promised. You promised dirt and what I’ve been getting for the last year is fluff.”

“ There honestly isn’t nothing there to write about. There’s no hidden secret, no issues, nothing worth writing about.” I rapped my fingers against the arm rest. “ It was a dud.”

Poe cocked an eyebrow, “ Why do I have feeling there’s a bit of an untruth there?”

“ Because you don’t like what you’ve heard?”

“ Ah, there’s the Solo I’ve been waiting for. It’s been a while since I’ve heard those fast, sarcastic quips from you.” He began rocking in his chair as he looked up idly at nothing. “ It’s just that, I don’t know, something is off. Something doesn’t smell right.”

“ I have no idea what you’re reaching for.”

“ You tell me it was a dud, and yet there were word on the street that she was caught leaving a First Order party with an unknown guy. A tall, dark haired guy.”

Well, shit.

Word was getting out and that meant we weren’t being as cautious as we should have been with our relationship. I did not react or give him any indication that I was the man he was referring to. He wasn’t looking at me, but I was sure that he was fishing for me to bite on the bait.

“ There are a lot of tall, dark hair guys in this industry. I wouldn’t doubt it if she was dating a model.” I paused for a moment, reading his body language, “ I don’t usually ask about her personal life in the interviews. It’s not like I have the opportunity to do so with her charge always lurking in the shadows.”

“ Right.”

“ Then there was the incident during fashion week in a stairwell.”

Suddenly the air in the room had been sucked out. He began to run his fingers through his orange tie, looking at the faint white pattern that cross crossed across it like he was waiting for some confirmation, for me to finally break and tell him the truth.

I remained silent.

“ There have been a lot of moments, actually, of her disappearing off with a certain individual and you tell me there’s nothing going, that this has all been a bust?” he laughed as he shook his head, and then sighed, “ I wasn’t born yesterday, Solo. You don’t think I know?”

“ There’s nothing going on.”

“ Mitaka told me. Tokyo. Miami. Los Angeles. He told me everything.”

“ Look —“

Poe held his hand up, immediately cutting me off. I sank into the chair and readied myself for his rant.

“ When I said get close to her I didn’t mean sleep with her. I was wondering why Snoke was so interested in you — specifically you — and now it makes all the sense in the world. Granted, I thought it was about your writing skill, but I was obviously way off the mark.”

“ What do you want me to do?”

“ Well, the right thing to do would be to break it off and save whatever professionalism is left between us and the First Order. But you don’t listen to people so I know you will just continue creeping around with her until everything blows up in my face.”

I honestly didn’t know what to say. He was right. I had never really considered the professional ramifications of our relationship; I was just so focused on her and being with her that nothing else had mattered. I thought the Robot was lying when he threatened me all those months ago, before any of this had even started, but I was wrong. I should have listened to Hux – he was right when he warned me about that little rat.

Poe sat up and pulled himself closer to the desk. He rested his elbows, lacing his fingers together as he looked at me as if I was some pathetic child. I guess I deserved it.

“ I can’t stop you, Solo. You’re a grown ass man. But do you have any idea on what you’ve done?” he asked with an exasperation.

“ Things just happened, I didn’t plan on it.” I ended up saying. The weakest excuse in the book, but it was true. I never planned on falling in love with her.

Then again, no one ever plans on that happening. It just does.

“ So, I won’t be getting my bombshell article.”

“ I don’t think I can do that to her.”

My honesty scared me. I almost felt like throwing up then.

Poe had only hummed, nodded, and leaned in his chair with his hands-on chest, still laced together.

“ You’re wadding in dangerous waters, Solo. Very dangerous waters.” he placed a hand on his desk and drummed his fingers against it, almost pensively. Poe was not happy about this, but he was trying so hard not to make a fuss about it. “ I can’t tell you what to do, just get my story and don’t fuck it up. Remember, there’s so much more on the line than some model with a drug problem.”

I gripped the armrest. His eyes drifted to my hands.

“ Yeah,” he raked his fingers through his hair and looked at me. “ Exactly.”

“ Don’t tell Hux.” I said like it made any difference. It didn’t it, but I wanted to get it out there. I wanted to remind him that he was no different than me, that he shouldn’t dare attempt to hold my relationship as leverage against me.

He only shrugged his shoulders as if it didn’t matter what I thought or said.

“ Trust me,” Poe said with a exasperated sigh, “ Your secret’s safe with me as long as you don’t go blabbering to everyone about my personal business with him.”

“ I didn’t say it. You did.”

He gave me a lopsided grin, “ Get out of my office.”

****

“ You haven’t been around again,” Beatrice said as she stood next to my usual booth, carafe in hand just waiting to fill my mug with coffee. “ Been busy?”

“ Yeah, you can say.” I said as I flipped through the pages of my old, beat up notebook. My hands stopped on the page about that damned failed restaurant with the horrible duck and my lips quirked into a small smile at the memory. Simpler times.

“ Well, for what it’s worth, if busy is gonna keep that smile on your face, please by all means stay busy.” she topped me off. “ Looks good on you.”

I stopped smiling and grunted as I picked up the mug, “ I prefer wallowing in my own self misery, thank you very much.”

Beatrice only laughed her way back to the kitchen. I took a sip and allowed myself to enjoy the fresh brewed cup. It was bitter enough to wake me up, but smooth enough to not make me gag. I used to spend hours here drinking cup after cup when I had attempted to quit drinking cold turkey, hoping the caffeine could override the miserable DTs my body was going through on those nights where I felt like my body was trying to rip itself apart.

I had forgotten how much I relied on this place for stability. A year ago, I would spend nights upon nights here, drinking hot coffee, writing thoughts down, and talking to Beatrice about whatever was going on in her hectic life. I barely came by now, spending my time in the comfort of Rey.

Poe’s words had haunted me since our meeting nearly a week ago. He was always one for drama, much like his insufferable lover, but he was serious. Too serious for my own liking. Why did he care about my relationship with Rey to talk to me as if I was about to make a deal with the devil? Was it her or was it something else? He never was clear in what he was trying to tell me then, and I had only thought of it as him being absolutely paranoid and selfish – looking out for his own ass and job. He was right; if anything had gone wrong in our relationship, the blow back of it affecting the magazine could have been detrimental.

“ Hey, lover boy.”

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I had not heard Rey come in and sit across from me at the booth. I looked up and blinked at a plain faced, baseball cap wearing woman with a cheeky grin. She nodded towards my notebook and I closed it, putting it down on the seat next to me.

“ I had not even noticed you show up.”

“ I could tell. I was sitting here for a good two minutes wondering when you were gonna notice.”

“ Sorry.”

“ So this is where you spend your time?” she asked as she looked around the small diner. I nodded. I had invited her to join me for coffee. I was slowly integrating her into my personal life – bit by bit, day by day, like peeling back layers of an onion. I didn’t want our relationship to feel like a tryst anymore, I wanted it to feel real. Enough hiding in hotel rooms, in closets or stairwells. Let’s have coffee like a real couple.

“ Yeah, just about. It’s either here or the apartment.”

“ Such an exciting life.”

“ Well, I occasionally try to spice it up with trips to Japan and Italy.” I grinned and she rolled her eyes before cracking her own smile.

“ How’s the food?”

“ Amazing. You should have the cheesecake.” I waved Beatrice over. “ It’s pretty damn good. Best cheesecake on the lower east side.”

“ I think I want a nice greasy burger and fries.”

“ Ah, a bold choice for two a.m.”

“ I like living dangerously.”

I chuckled but something deep inside of me knew that it wasn’t some off handed joke. She worked hard, but lived harder. Poe had generously reminded me of that, Finn was the constant warning gnawing at my conscience. I pushed it away, focused on her sun kissed cheeks and wavy hair that framed her round face under a white baseball cap.

“ Ah, and who’s the pretty girl?” Beatrice asked as she came to our table.

“ Hello there, I’m Rey.”

“ Oh, and you’re British? Now I don’t hear that accent every day! The name is Beatrice and I’ll be taking care of you tonight!” she pulled out her order pad. “ What can I get ya?”

“ Burger and fries.” Rey perked up. “ Oh! And a chocolate milkshake.”

“ You got it, my dear.”

Beatrice left us alone.

“ A milkshake too?”

“ We can share it like a cheesy couple from a 1950s movie.”

“ Then make out in the back of a car like two horny teenagers, right?”

“ Of course, Ben. That’s how dates always work in America.”

I felt my heart flutter in my chest. I never looked at it in that way. Dates weren’t something we did — it was always passion filled, desperate make out sessions that lead to me being buried between her legs and her nails dragging down my back, burning me deep into my soul. I leaned over and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and she leaned into it. This was date. We were on a date.

“ I love you so much.” I whispered as I pulled my hand away. The words fell out of my mouth without thinking. I was so overwhelmed with those damned feelings that I had not bothered to think about what Beatrice could have seen or about any bystanders.

Rey took my hand into her own and squeezed it.

“ I love you, too.” she gave me such a bright smile, I swore I was looking at the sun. “ I’m so glad I met you, Ben.”

“ Me too.”

We spent the next hour or so sharing fries and milkshakes, talking about anything and everything but our personal stories — our truths. We should have spent more time learning about each other, but we were so focused on being normal that it never once bothered me that she never told me her real last name or her childhood as an orphan. And it never crossed her mind to ask me about my dysfunctional childhood or my alcoholism.

We were foolishly content with laughing at corny jokes and sharing quick kisses between sips of a chocolate milkshake.

I paid for the food, left Beatrice my usual tip, and we left the diner hand in hand, drunk on love and the feeling of being free — if only for that small moment. We grabbed a taxi, got in the back, and had the driver take us back to my place as she leaned into me, head on my shoulder and hand still laced with mine.

It didn’t bother me when we stumbled through my apartment door, pulling our clothes off as we kissed, and kissed, tasting bitter coffee and sweet chocolate. When she straddled me on my bed, I watched as the street light painted her skin in a yellow-orange glow, making her seem like a goddess sent to take me high.

I sank into the mattress, closed my eyes, and let myself enjoy every single sensation she gave me. Each electric touch. Every burning kiss. At that moment I would have razed the world for her.

****

I woke up to an empty bed. I rolled onto my back and let my hand drift to where she had been pressed against me — it was still warm. Looking up at the ceiling, I still could see the orange glow of the street light bisecting it, one side a warm hue the other side dark and cold. My sleepy mind slowly tried to piece together the situation: it was still night and she either had just left or she was just about to. I slowly sat up, blinking the sleep from my eyes, and saw Rey sitting on the windowsill in one of my t-shirts. She was hunched over, drawing something with a book resting on her knees as a crude writing surface.

My anxiety had quelled. She hadn’t left.

“ You are a really good model,” Rey said as she looked at me. “ I had to draw.”

Oh, she was drawing me? I took a quick glance at my clock — it was a quarter to five. I wasn’t for sleep for long it seemed.

“ You know, I never really paid attention to your body. But I started to draw and realized you really have a nice, athletic shape.” she chuckled, “ Usually the people in your field of work tend to be either really dorky or really portly. Ha! That rhymed.”

She giggled as she continued drawing. I couldn’t help but shake my head and chuckle at the cheesiness of the joke.

“ I work out.”

“ Understa-aa-atement of the year.” she sang.

I tossed the sheets off of my body and got out of bed, completely fine with my nudity around her. I walked over to her, not worried if anyone could see me outside the window this early in the morning. Most of the people in this neighborhood had seen worst.

I reached for the book in her lap and she let me take it from her. She had used lined paper for the drawing, but it didn’t matter, the pencil sketch was still amazing. She had drawn me while I was sleeping on my side. I hadn’t realized how relaxed my face was when I was asleep.

“ You’re amazing.”

“ I try.”

She got up from the windowsill and walked over to my desk, putting the pencil back. I put the book with the drawing down where she had once been sitting and walked over to her. She reached for me and I obliged her, stepping into her embrace, letting her weave her fingers into the hair at my nape. I let my hands rest on her hips underneath my shirt.

I hear her hum a song and started swaying side to side. Her hands drop from my nape to my shoulders and around my waist. I began to move with her, pulling her flush against my body as she leaned her head against my chest, still humming a song I had never heard before.

I placed kisses against her hair, caressed the skin at her hips with my thumbs. She sighed contently as she continued to hum.

We could work, I thought then as I slowly danced with her.

She kissed me, tasting me and her and everything. Her hands dipped down, and our slow dance had moved onto the mattress where I touched her like a well tuned instrument — each gasp, moan, and whine like music to our crude dance.

And when we came she placed a hand on my chest, against my rapidly beating heart, and I thought she had burned herself permanently into my soul.

We could’ve worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooo two more chapters left in this part.
> 
> so there's an official book out there called rey's survival guide and it reveals that she's actually a talented artist, with each page full of detailed images that she drew of the people and things she encountered on jakku. a lot of fanfictions focus more on her mechanical skills, i'm just as guilty, but there's also that little tidbit that i decided to explore! yay, so there boom. rey's an artist. 
> 
> they're trying so hard to make this thing work, that they're not even paying attention to the signs. prepare yourselves, the next two chapters will be a trip to angstville. you thought the last chapters were bad? whoa boy.
> 
> i appreciate your reviews and comments and kudos! thank you so much!


	17. part ii : chapter vii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he kisses her, scattering apologies against her warm skin

“ That is the face of a man who has been thoroughly fucked.”

 

Armitage Hux, in all of his refined appearance, made the statement on a subway car heading straight to Coney Island. In his three-piece suit, slicked back hair, and well shaven face he stood out like a pale sore thumb against the graffiti that covered the window behind his head and the hard-plastic orange seat. No one turned their head to see where it had came from, as if it was completely normal to hear such crude language in the accent of a posh, upright Brit.

 

“ How do you know?” I asked, sitting next to him, looking just as much as a sore thumb against the backdrop of MTA’s finest in my usual black attire of a button-down shirt and slacks.

 

“ The grin. The lazy, satisfied grin of a good dicking.”

 

“ And how do you know it was a good dicking?”

 

Hux crossed his legs, “ Trust me, Benjamin. I know my gays.”

 

I had to take him for his word, though looking at the man sitting a few seats away never gave me any indication of his sexuality. Every schmuck who worked in the financial district wore a suit. But this guy’s suit wasn’t as ill fitting as the rest, so I guess that was the tell all sign for gays on Wall Street.

 

The man stood up and got off at the next stop. He had given Hux a quick glance and Hux obliged him with a smirk. It felt surreal, like I was being privy to the ancient ritual of secret homosexual communication.

 

“ My apologies, I was wrong. He’s _going_ to the dicking.” He said once the train started moving again.

 

“ Can you tell when a straight guy has been thoroughly fucked?”

 

“ I don’t have to. You all instantly need to announce it to the world as if we care about your conquests.” he sighed. “Honestly, it’s quite annoying. It would be nice if you all just kept quite about it. Have a little class and be subtle. Wear it on your face, not on your tongue.”

 

“ I’ll keep that in mind.”

 

An old woman made an unflattering noise and I looked at her. She sat on the other side of the subway car, narrowing her eyes at us with a shake of her head. Was the conversation too crass for her ears or did she think we were fucking based on the conversation we were having. A part of me wanted to get under her skin – get closer to Hux, maybe even hold his hand, to see what she would have done. Instead I raised my eyebrow, silently asking her if she had a problem with two, young men having a conversation on the subway.

 

She held her bag closer to her body and looked away indignantly.

 

Hux elbowed me, “I’ve heard you’ve taken a liking to a certain tea?”

 

I knew he was going to try and stir the pot. I shifted in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. I leaned back, resting my head on the glass and closed my eyes.

 

“ What are you going on about now?” I sighed.

 

The subway stopped at Brighton Beach, and a whole bunch of people got on. The next stop was Ocean Parkway — Coney Island. I cracked open an eye and looked at the old woman. She got up and mumbled something about us going to hell as she got off at the stop.

 

 Hux shook his head and straightened his posture.

 

“ Everyone knows you hate food and lifestyle. I’m talking about a certain drink — perhaps you enjoyed Earl Grey late at night?”

 

“ Earl Grey? What the fuck are you….” The words died on my tongue as I finally understood the reference. He was talking about Rey. Suddenly I had to remind myself to give Poe my thanks with my fist to his face.

 

Hux just hummed in acknowledgement. “ Ah, so it is true.”

 

“ What did you have to do to Dameron to get him to talk?”

 

Hux looked at me and feigned an innocent expression, despite the words that came from his mouth, “ A bottle of jack and a blow job. I also let him top.”

 

“ Ugh.”

 

Too much information.

 

Way too much information that I wanted to hear.

 

The train arrived at the final stop, giving me a moment to refresh and focus on something other than Poe and Hux’s personal lives. We got out of the train, through the madness of the crowded station, and out into the hot Fourth of July summer.

 

I was sure people were looking at us, or more specifically Hux, who stuck out like a sore thumb in his outfit. While everyone was in the usual t-shirts and shorts, here was two oversized buffoons dressed like we were about to go to work downtown. Technically, it was work, though. I rolled up my sleeves and popped open a few buttons on my shirt.

 

“ Ah, the smell of disgusting fried food. We’ve arrived.” Hux said as he took a picture of the crowd.

 

“ Maybe your boyfriend wanted to introduce you to the commoners’ pallet.” I deadpanned.

 

“ I have been well aquatinted with cheap fair food. I do not like it. I do not enjoy smelling it.” He took another photo. “ Thank the heavens I ate before coming.”

 

The boardwalk was packed with people and navigating it was cumbersome to say the least. Parents tried to keep their kids from running off too far, young couples shared finger food between each other, and the lines at the rides wrapped around thrice fold. Hux had told me about the assignment, figured I would appreciate the extra gig for the local paper. He threw my name in, as he boasted to me over the phone, and it was a favor that he didn’t have to do but did it anyway because he pitied me.

 

It was Huxglish for wanting to get in my business.

 

And, as we sought shelter under the awning of the entrance to a video game arcade, Hux asked, “ So, why her and do you have any idea of what you’re doing?”

 

“ She’s nice and no, I don’t, and no I don’t care.”

 

“ Bullshit. I’ve seen you two interact and there’s a lot more than that.”

 

“ Why are you with Poe?”

 

“ Because he annoys me,” Hux took another photo of the boardwalk. “ But it’s an annoyance I like. He pushes the right buttons and I can do it right back.”

 

“ That sounds dysfunctional.”

 

“ All relationships are dysfunctional. If they’re functioning, then something’s wrong. So _why_ Rey Niima?”

 

“ I don’t need to tell you why other than it just is.”

 

The honest answer was I did not know why. It never crossed my mind. We just worked — we clicked together seamlessly. It definitely wasn’t for the looks, she could have found someone far more attractive than I, being a model an all. Was it the personality? Probably. What else could there be if it’s not physical attraction than personality.

 

Then again, our relationship has been built on sex. It’s always been physical on some level.

 

I hated that Hux made me second guess myself.

 

“ We just work,” I said. “ There really isn’t a reason. It feels right and we both want it.”

 

“ I don’t consider you a friend, but I do care, somewhat, about anyone who decides to fall into the black hole that is the First Order.”

 

“ I could care less about the First Order.”

 

“ You don’t fuck First Order property and not worry about the repercussions that follow.”

 

“ She isn’t property,” I spat, “ She’s a person.”

 

“ Not to Snoke.” Hux looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “ You honestly don’t understand the mess you’ve gotten yourself into, have you?”

 

“You are awfully pessimistic about this considering this was your suggestion.”

 

Hux rolled his eyes as crossed his legs, leaning over the table as he pressed his pointed finger into my shoulder.

 

“ I was joking, you dumb twat.” he said, emphasizing each word with a poke. He straightened as he crossed his arms. “ I’ve always said to _stay away_. They’re sharks. Once they sense blood in the water, they go for the kill. Do they even know?”

 

“ No, because it’s none of their business.”

 

“ You are dumber than I thought.” His voice lacked the sarcasm or exasperated tone he usually spoke with. I had never heard him sound so serious before, well other than the time that I found out about his relationship with Poe. “ No one works for the First Order without selling themselves to Snoke. No one.”

 

“ Rey,” I started, then stopped before I realized that what Hux had said was actually right. They knew. Snoke knew. “ She is… she has not sold herself. No one owns her.”

 

“ She’s just an overpaid escort for Johnathan Snoke. You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think the First Order is not using her to get something out of you.”

 

“Jesus Christ, Hux, can you not talk about her that way?” I growled. I was already done with this conversation. “It’s fucking pissing me off.”

 

Hux tilted his head to the side, as he glanced at nothing, as if contemplating what I had just told him. He blinked for a few times before nodding his head. The body language was clearly saying, “Yes, okay, this guy has totally fucked himself”. He looked at me, though I couldn’t read his expression, and tapped his index finger against his bicep pensively.

 

“ All I am saying, Benjamin, is to reevaluate your relationship with her.” His voice was oddly calm despite his body language. “ You aren’t the first, and you definitely won’t be the last. No one works for the First Order without something waiting on the other side. Let’s say that her feelings for you are genuine, as you’ve unfortunately managed convinced yourself, what did she have to sacrifice for it? What does she have to do for it?” His lips curled into a satisfied smile as he read my expression. “ Yeah, exactly.”

 

I raked my fingers through my hair. I didn’t respond to him. I decided to stay quiet and look out onto the boardwalk, for some distraction from the things Hux had told me. I did not want to think about it, because it whenever I did think about it – those moments when I would be laying in bed, her body curled up against my side, were when I began to doubt everything. The relationship. Her. Me.

 

We probably weren’t good for each other, and Hux was probably right. But I didn’t want to give up on what I did have. I didn’t want to loose the euphoria that I got whenever I was with her. Convincing myself that this was real, that these feelings were _love_ were a lot easier to process than to face the truth that would sit on my dresser, with the ghost of lipstick against its glass rim.

 

“ If I were you,” Hux said. “ I would finish the article and cut all ties before you get hurt.”

 

* * * *

 

Clothes were strewn everywhere in the loft. Shirts on the floor, pants on the bed, dresses and skirts hanging off of a pole. There were cardboard boxes stacked everywhere with descriptions crudely written in black marker on the side: dresses, books, art supplies, etc. Rey was in the kitchen, in nothing more than an oversized T-shirt, making a loud racket as she searched for her cookware to pack up and move to her own place. I was kneeling next to her on the tile floor, wrapping her dishes and cups in old newspaper.

 

It was another rare moment of domesticity that gave me a taste of what we could have been. Packing things in boxes for a move dressed in nothing but a T-shirt and sweatpants? That’s what every couple in New York did, right? They didn’t just go straight to sex – then hit the bottle afterwards, trying to seek an escape from reality and chase a euphoric high.

 

We had a few drinks, though. There was no way to avoid it now. A couple of beers and a good conversation, catching up on lost time, before we decided to start packing her things up. We weren’t drunk, yet, and I had wanted to keep it that way. Enjoy the normalcy, savor it as if it was juicy steak at the most expensive restaurant in this hell hole of a city.

 

August was about to rear its humid, ugly self soon and with that Rey would officially be off to Hollywood for three months to film the movie. I wouldn’t be joining her and rather than risk what we had, it was just better to maintain as much proprietary as possible. She didn’t need rumors and I didn’t want to be the reason behind them. But prior to the movie shoot, she had finally managed to get her own place somewhere in Chelsea. I hadn’t seen it, but apparently it was a small studio in a converted brownstone. That’s why the apartment was a mess of boxes and things.

 

I would be the first to admit that I was excited now knowing that I would not have to creep around Phasma anymore, coming up with lame excuses just to come over, have pizza, and eat her out on the couch as cheesy science fiction movies made for background noise to accompany her loud moans.

 

“ I think that if we can get all of this packed by five, I can run and get the key from the landlord before six.” Rey said as she observed a pot in her hand.

 

“ When are the movers coming?”

 

“ In two days but I really want to move in now.” She put the pot in the box and closed it. I tossed her the roll of duct tape that she caught effortlessly. We moved in tandem with each other, like we had been doing this for years. “ I don’t care if I gotta sleep on the floor.”

 

“ Sounds like you really hate it here.”

 

“ I just want my independence, that’s all. I’ve been living with Phasma since I arrived in America.”

 

She started taping the box shut.

 

“ Why didn’t you move out earlier?” I put a wrapped-up plate in the box and moved on to the next one. “ I mean, if things were that bad…”

 

“ Things weren’t bad. Snoke just didn’t allow it.” Rey said simply with a tear of the tape. I frowned at the comment. “ I had to live with Phasma as training. She taught me the industry, what to do at parties, how to present myself — wait, why are you looking at me like that?”

 

I shook my head, “ I don’t get why you need permission from him to move.”

 

“ What makes you think I need his permission?”

 

“ You just said that he didn’t allow it, so I just assumed you needed his permission. I was under the assumption you had some autonomy. It just doesn’t sound like it.”

 

Rey stood up and picked up the box off the ground. Rather than respond to what I said, she walked into the foyer of the loft and put the box down on top of the stack of packed boxes by the door. I took a moment to take in what had just happened — I wasn’t hallucinating. She had completely decided to ignore me. Finding it odd, I got up, leaving the cup on the floor and walked over to her.

 

“ Rey, I’m just being honest.” I said. She walked past me.

 

“ It doesn’t matter,” Rey said as she began to rummage through her clothes that were on the bed. “ You should know how things are by now.”

 

“ What do you mean by that?”

 

Okay. Now she managed to strike a nerve with me. I rubbed my chin as I tried to process the sudden change in her mood. She continued to gather her clothes, haphazardly folding them, and then arranging them by color without much thought, as if she was trying to keep herself busy, or look like she was busy.

 

The loft was big, but it wasn’t so big that we could ignore each other’s presence. An iron support beam stood between us, but it felt like an impenetrable wall. I could have walked over to her, but I stood on the other side, looking at her hunched over back.

 

“ Rey –"

 

“ Let’s not talk about this. Are you finished with the kitchen stuff?”

 

“ No.”

 

She straightened up, a grey shirt in her hand, but she didn’t turn around.

 

“ Ben –” she stressed, clearly indicating that I should have dropped it.

 

Honestly, I should have picked up on the warning, but I was never a good reader of people or someone who knew when to say the right thing at the right time. I suffered from foot in mouth syndrome, and it was about to bite me in the ass.

 

“ You’re right. I know exactly how things are and I hate it.”

 

I spoke up, not giving her a chance to finish whatever was on her mind. I wanted to let her know how I felt about her situation. They said that all relationships are built on trust and honesty, right? I wanted to make this – us – work. I thought I was doing the right thing. She glanced over her shoulder.

 

“ I don’t want to talk about this with you.” Rey quietly said and looked at the shirt in her hand. She rolled it in a ball and threw it back onto the bed.

 

“ Why.”

 

Maybe I was too direct with her, or maybe I had sounded as if I was accusing her of something, because she jumped slightly at the sound of my voice. Yet, I didn’t care. My mind started wandering. I began to start thinking about the things I had witnessed over the past year. I was growing frustrated at the notion that Snoke controlled her. I hated the fact that she may, or may not have, slept with that fucking producer. I hated that the things that Hux told me on that Fourth of July kept haunting me, eating away at my conscious and bleeding doubt into my mind.

 

“ Why, Rey.” I repeated.

 

She sighed, “Because I don’t want to, okay?”

 

I crossed the threshold. I stood behind her and put my hand on her arms, coaxing her to face me. She didn’t protest or resist and looked up at me. My hands dropped to my sides and I looked into her eyes, trying to see if I could find something, _anything_ that could stop the bubbling anger that was just wanting to boil over and turn my suspicions into legitimate concerns of doubt and deceit.

 

Was Snoke forcing her to sleep with that producer? Was it true that she was nothing more than a glorified prostitute for the old man? Was our relationship legitimate or was Snoke just using her to get to me?

 

Rey stepped around me. I watched as she walked into the kitchen, knelt on the floor, and started to wrap the rest of the glassware.

 

“ You’ve been acting strange since Los Angeles.” Rey said, stopping what she was doing. She put the wrapped glass in the box next to her. She looked up at me. “ Like you’re hiding something from me.”

 

“ I’m not hiding anything.” I said.

 

I was lying to myself. I was lying to her.

 

But telling the truth would destroy whatever we had, so I forced myself to swallow it. I looked at Rey and tried to push aside that doubt, that fear, that jealous, that… anger. 

 

I lied.

 

Rey stood up. She wordlessly walked over to the wet bar and grabbed a bottle of gin. She popped the cap off the bottle and took a swig as I watched like a gobsmacked fool. She winced as the alcohol went down, “ You aren’t a good liar,” she said afterwards. “ You never were.”

 

I did not know what has came over me in that moment, but I stalked over to her and grabbed the bottle from her hand and put it down with more force than necessary. She looked at me like she was ready for a fight and had no plans on backing down.

 

“ You have no fucking idea of who I am.” I said lowly, straining myself from intimidating her, as I tried to focus my anger elsewhere — anywhere but her.

 

But she just rolled her eyes and picked up the bottle, taking another sip as if to spite me. She walked away from me, over to the couch and pointed at me with the bottle in hand.

 

“ Ah, yes, that’s right. I don’t, but I know enough.” She scoffed and sighed loudly, “ You’re entitled. You’re selfish. You think that because I gave you a piece of me that you get to have all of it.”

 

I stood there silently watching her as she took a few gulps from the bottle. How did we get to this point, I wondered, as she raked her fingers through her hair and sauntered back into the kitchen. I didn’t like what I saw seeing, watching her drink so brazenly in front of me as if she was using the bottle as an outlet for her anger and frustration.

 

I followed her into the kitchen and took the bottle away from her as she whined in protest. I took a few gulps myself in some failed attempt in trying to calm my nerves — a reckless decision — and pulled her into an embrace, despite her trying to wiggle out of my grasp with barely any effort. Combing my fingers through her hair, I rocked us side to side, whispering apologizes against her hair until she relaxed against me.

 

“ Don’t think that I’m trying to take advantage of you.” I said, looking at the window, at the old water towers and neon signs that decorated the rooftops of the old, pre-war buildings that made up the neighborhood. “ I’m not like them.”

 

She pulled away just enough to put a short distance between us. She took my right hand into her left, interlacing our fingers together and slowly guided me to her bed. Without saying anything, she sat me down and pushed me to lie on my back on the bare mattress as she took the bottle from me and put it on the night stand. I simply leaned back and watched as she climbed up onto the mattress, bracketing my waist with her bare knees.

 

“ Whenever you look at me, I can see the jealously in your eyes.” She took my right and and slowly guided it up her inner thigh. “ You’re suspicious, you think I’ve done things behind your back. You think I’m not loyal to you.” I could feel the heat of her cunt against my fingertips through her panties. “ Isn’t that right, Ben?”

 

“ No, that’s not true.” I breathed as she pressed my fingers against the thin cotton barrier that separated my finger tips from her slick folds. I felt my dick twitch.

 

She shook her head and she released my hand. I didn’t even bother to push further, my hand falling limply onto my lap.

 

“ The producer in L.A. I see the way you look at him.” Rey scooted further up, until her thighs were around my head and her cunt was right over my face. She slipped a hand between her legs and pushed her panties aside, exposing herself to me. Wet, swollen, and aching.

 

I licked my lips.

 

“ But rest assured, he has never had the opportunity to have this.” She sucked in a breath and gave a shaken, aroused exhale. “ Make me cum. Show me that you love me.”

 

I grabbed her hips and rose up, giving her one slow lick from between her folds to her clit. I ate her out, because at the end of the day that’s how we solved our problems. I sucked, kissed, and fucked her with my mouth until she came quivering above me, falling over as I cleaned the cum with my tongue. It didn’t matter that we had this weird argument just moments before — where we threw knives at each other, hoping to cut.

 

She rolled onto her side, slipping to lie next to me, and pressed her thighs together as the orgasm pulsates throughout her body. I was hard at that point, but I didn’t dare touch myself. I only wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stared up at the ceiling.

 

“ I didn’t sleep with him,” Rey whispered, her lips moving against my bicep. “ I didn’t sleep with him.”

 

I felt odd.

 

I sat up and looked down at the woman. She rolled onto her back and reached for me. I took her hand into mine and placed a kiss on each digit before moving on top of her, nudging my knee between her legs. I undid my pants and pushed them down, my cock springing free, precum leaking from the tip. She wrapped her legs around my hips, pulling me close as my fingers pushed aside her soaked panties.

 

“ I know.”

 

I thrust into her tight warmth, finding the familiar pattern of sex a lot more comforting than the doubt that was increasingly eroding my thoughts.

 

We lied there on the bed, the mattress stained from our fucking, our clothes still partially on, breathing heavily as we looked up at the ceiling. The gin bottle empty between us, it’s contents flooding our livers.  We didn’t say anything as we lied there on that bed, leaving the words best unsaid and focusing more on how good everything felt when we were drunk and fucking. How much easier it was to simply be physic rather than be normal, functioning adults in a relationship.

 

My mind still wouldn’t let go of the things Hux told me. Of the moments in L.A. Of the night in Miami. Once the post coital euphoria subsided, there was nothing left than the doubt. There wasn’t enough liquor in the world that could make it go away. It only made it worst.

 

So I rolled into her side, pressing myself into her and leaving kisses against the sensitive skin behind her ear, her cheek, her chin. I gave each kiss like I was trying to rid myself of shame of what I had done. Each kiss a plea to not let go, even if my anxiety blinded me from our reality.

 

“ God, I love you.” I murmured, more to myself than her, but she sighs and falls onto me as if it was enough.

 

As if I had given her forgiveness.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> penultimate chapter. it took a while to get this one out and yet so much has happened between august and now. 
> 
> new rise of reylo trailer drops and im writing reylo angst. i should write some fluff~ 
> 
> congratulations reylos, now get in the car. we’re riding to canon town.


	18. part ii : chapter viii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> she's nothing more than a bird trapped in a gilded cage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> potential trigger warning for drug use, codependency, and just overall emotional distress

“ For finally finishing one of the best special topics we’ve covered here at Vanity Fair, I want to personally give my congratulations to the most annoying, stubborn, and stuck up freelancer that I’ve come to know in this damned city, Ben. Cheers.”

The small room broke out in small claps and everyone lifted their wine glasses in salute. I didn’t know many in the room, except for the usual suspects, but sitting in one of the chairs in the lounge was Amilyn Holdo, looking at me with a small smile and a nod of her head.

She did not have to be here, at this small drinking hole in the Lower East Side, but she was here anyway partaking in this wrap up party for my work on Rey.

Poe had decided to set this up despite my protests and threats against it. I didn’t want to be corralled into some get together with people I didn’t know, but I ended up caving to the pressure after Hux repeated nagging over the phone at random hours of the night. So, here I was, at a dimly lit bar with ten Condé Nast employees, having free drinks over my work.

I should have felt honored by the gesture but I was never one for pompous self gratification.

“ Anything you like to share with us, Ben?” Holdo had asked after a few minutes. I looked at her from where I sat and shook my head. “ This was such a huge project for you, I think you should have something to say about it.”

“ Yeah, give us some words.” Poe pushed.

I took a deep, regretful breath and swallowed my pride, “ Uh, yeah —“

“ Stand up. We can’t hear you.” said Hux, who was sitting next to Poe, with a dirty little grin.

I put my drink down and got up, making sure to give Hux and his boyfriend a dirty look, “ So, uh, I want to thank you… all… for the opportunity to write this piece. It was a lot of work and I did not get much sleep.” The room laughed, but it wasn’t a joke. It was the truth. “ But I’m glad it’s over and I’m happy to be finally moving on.”

Everyone clapped as I sat back down. The final issue wasn’t due to hit the newsstands for another two weeks, but Poe had managed to get an early print and gave it to me with a bow on top. I had no idea what was going to happen now — Poe and I had not sat down to talk about work since I dropped off the manuscript on his desk.

It took me a while to get the right words down on paper. Things had gotten too personal, too deep, and I did not know how to separate the two. I was not good at fiction yet I was writing fiction in order to protect whatever we had. Or, well, to avoid putting down anything that could have given us away.

I had not seen Rey since she left to California nearly a month ago. The last time we were together, it was at her new studio apartment. The place was small, but it worked. Her art supplies took up half of the studio, a large canvas sat in the corner next to the window that looked down upon the tree lined street. It was covered and when I tried to get a peak she slapped my hand away.

“ It’s a surprise,” she had whispered before dragging me back to bed.

Once the speeches were done and the drinks were pouring, I no longer was the center of attention. Everyone naturally fell into conversations about things I could have cared less about, talking like I wasn’t in the room, as if I had just decided to ha w a solitary drink on a Thursday night.

I got up and walked over to the bar tender, shaking my empty jack and coke as a sign for another one.

“ So, you’re drinking again, I see.”

“ Maybe.”

Holdo leaned against the bar with her glass of red wine and looked at me with that smile that always irritated me.

“ Maybe? I see,” she put her glass down. “ Well, you’re a grown man, so I’m not going to give you a talk about it. Though your parents won’t be too happy to find out.”

“ I don’t need you to report back to my parents about my choices in life.” I picked up the new drink and faced Holdo. She raised an eyebrow as I took a long drink. “ Social drinking isn’t bad.”

“ For then, maybe, but not you. Definitely not you.”

“ What is it that you want?”

Holdo put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. I could hear Poe laughing loudly in the background.

“ I got in contact with your uncle a few days ago, thanks to your mother, and he’s agreed to write for us.”

Her hand fell from my shoulder as she gave me a wide tooth smile. The idea of my uncle returning from wherever he was bothered me. I did not want to see him. I still was not over our fallout.

“ I am surprised,” I said plainly, not bothering to mask my indifference. “ He is contactable.”

“ There’s one condition — he wants you to work with him.”.

“ No.”

I don’t wait. I don’t think it out. I don’t want to be around him at all. She was still looking at me with that dumb look as if what’s wrong I had said went through one ear and out the other.

“ This is an offer to work for _The New Yorker_. Didn’t you want to write for us? Here’s your chance.”

She was dangling the prize in front of me. Taunting me. I looked at Poe and Hux sitting next to each other in one of the two booths in this small bar happily having a conversation with two women from the editorial department. I looked at her again.

“ And what if I decline?”

Holdo’s smile faltered, a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, for the briefest moment. Picking up her wine glass, she brought it to her lips and took a slow sip.

“ He won’t write for us. I don’t see there being any reason to decline this offer. It’s completely in your favor. I get what I want and you get what you want..”

It was what I wanted, right? Why I was even here in the first place.

I finished my drink.

“ I’ll think about it.”

****

The brisk chill of fall had swooped into town without much warning. One day it was a dry, hot day in the city and the next it was cold and raining. The issue was about to hit the newsstands any day now, but my job at Vanity Fair had ended the night of the party. No more food and culture. My name was too associated with the Rey Niima series. Poe mentioned something about an assignment covering some actor or singer, but I told him I had enough of celebrities.

And so after a year and a half of steady work, I was back to sitting at the diner with the cup of black coffee and my notebook. It was late, as always, the streets of New York open to the night crawlers and insomniacs. I had came just before sunset and hadn’t left — that was around three hours ago — and the diner had just finished the dinner rush. It was empty now, save for me and a old man in the other side.

I had not forgotten about Holdo’s offer. In fact, she had called me up about my answer last night. I let the machine answer it, and I had no plans on calling her back. Let her squirm a bit. It would serve her right for all the shit she had put me through.

“ Ben, you’re back.” Beatrice said as she walked into the dinner. She was wearing an oversized coat over her uniform, her usual teased hair damp from the rain. She sounded genuinely shocked, and I could only shrug my shoulders.

“ I guess you don’t want me here anymore?”

She was already behind the counter shrugging off her coat, “ Now, you know I always appreciate looking at that face of yours. It’s just strange always seeing you here again. Thought you had, like, something going on.”

“ I was freelancing,” I said as she disappeared into the back to put away her things. I could hear her greeting the cook and shift manager. “ Contract ended.”

Beatrice came out with an order pad, “ Well, I’m glad you’re back. Missed our late night conversations.”

“ Yeah,” I looked at my cup of coffee. “ Me too.”

“ Want me to top you off?”

“ No, I’m good.”

There was a television sitting on top of the refrigerator with the cake and bottled cokes. I never paid attention to it, but something had caught my eye — someone familiar. My heart rate increased when I saw that familiar smile on a round face with freckles cheeks.

It was a commercial for jeans but there was no mistake that the model was Rey. I didn’t even know she had filmed a commercial. With all that time we’ve spent together, I should have known she had done a commercial. I tried thinking of our conversations, but she never mentioned anything, so I guessed this was filmed while she was in California.

The commercial ended.

“ I know that girl.”

I looked at Beatrice. “ What girl?”

“ The one in the commercial. She was here, right? A few weeks ago — with you.” Beatrice expression had lit up at that point. “ That’s the same girl, right? Your girlfriend? You didn’t tell me she was famous!”

My mouth opened but I couldn’t get anything out. I didn’t know if I wanted to admit to it or deny it. Word travels fast and Beatrice, despite my roundness for her and coffee, could easily be a gossiper. I picked up my cup and held it out.

“ I’d like a new cup,” I cleared my throat and forced a smile. “ please.”

Beatrice rolled her eyes as she came over with a clean mug and a pot of coffee.

“ I won’t say anything, Ben,” Beatrice said softly as she poured the coffee. “ I just wanna say that I’m glad you finally found somebody who can put a smile on your face.”

I looked up at Beatrice as she took my old cup and walked back to the kitchen. I never had realized the effect Rey had on me, at least to the degree that people were able to notice a change. I didn’t feel any different, in fact I had felt as if a huge emotional weight was dropped on my chest.

I’ve been so worried about the relationship that doubt was beginning to take over my thoughts. Why hadn’t she called? Why didn’t I know where she was staying at? Was Hux right, after all?

The coffee was bitter against my tongue as I drank it, but I savored it anyway because it was something familiar to me. And after a year of uncertainty, it was an overdue welcome.

****

I should have noticed something was off when I made it to my doorstep, but my hands were cold and my coat was wet from the rain, all I wanted to do was get inside my apartment and turn on the heat, that it never crossed my mind that the door was unlocked. I always locked my door; the junkie on the floor below was known for attempting to break into the apartments in the building for cash or something to pawn off for a high, so I should have been shocked.

But there never was a chance for me to connect the two together, because she was sitting on my bed in nothing more than one of my black t-shirts that seemed to engulf her lithe frame. Her hair framed her round face in brown waves, and it appeared to be longer than I had last remembered. My heart dropped at the sight of her, and all I could think of was questions — why was she here? How did she get here? Why haven’t you called?

She looked up at me, gave me a smile, and got up from the bed. She ran over to me and wrapped her arms around me, burying her face into my chest. She felt so warm against my cold body; all the questions that I wanted to ask seemed to melt away.

“ I’ve been waiting so long for you to get home.” she murmured against my chest as she breathed me in. “ I thought you’d be home but you weren’t and I didn’t want to go back to L.A. until I saw you.”

I played with her hair as I held her, “ How did you get in?”

“ Your neighbor, Ms. Kanata, let me in. Apparently she has your spare.”

Maz’s grinning face flashed before my eyes. Of course she would have meddled in my affairs. Knowing her she probably harassed Rey with a million questions.

“ When did you get here?” I kissed the top of her head before letting her go. Rey took my hands into her smaller ones and slowly walked backwards, leading me into my apartment.

“ This morning. Some things I needed to do at the agency. I’ll be leaving back to L.A. tomorrow afternoon.”

“ So you’re just here for the night.”

“ Yeah.” Rey sat on my bed and crossed her legs. “ Is there a problem?”

“ No, no.” I walked to my door as I took off my wet coat. “ Nothing wrong.”

I hung up my coat and walked into the kitchen. I started to make a pot of tea despite it being nearly midnight. I was dead tired but it would have been a waste to spend the rest of the night asleep when Rey was finally back in my life, even for a short while. Her clothes were folded on top of my desk, next to my typewriter, and she watched as I wordlessly prepared us drinks.

“ I was meaning to call you, but I figured I’d surprise you instead.” she said as her feet swung off the bed.

“ You’ve succeeded in surprising me.”

Rey moves to lie on her back, taking my pillow and putting it under her head with a sigh. The water began to boil and I stood and watched her silently as she tried to get comfortable.

“ How long were you here waiting?” I asked, trying to fill up the room with some conversation.

“ Two hours? Maybe three. I don’t know. Once I landed I came straight here.” She rolled onto her side to look at me. “ You were at work?”

“ No. At the diner.”

“ Oh, the place with the good food.”

“ Yep. That one.”

“ We should go back.”

“ Yeah, we should.”

The water finally came to a boil. I poured it into the two cups, letting the tea seep for a few seconds, and walked over to Rey with the cups of tea. I handed her one and she sat up, taking it into her hand. She blew a few times before taking a little sip.

“ Ben, something wrong?”

I raised an eyebrow. “ No. Why?”

“ You seem a bit… distant.”

I sat in my chair across from her. It wasn’t like I was trying to be distant, but something just wasn’t right about this moment. Yeah, I was happy to finally see her but at the same time it bothered me that she hadn’t called me in the weeks since she left for L.A. I thought we were in a relationship.

I guess we were in one. I was just over thinking things.

Rey got up and walked over to me. She reached over me to put her cup down and I could smell the faint traces of my soap on her skin. She took my face into her hands and looked at me, concern all over her features.

“ You okay?”

I nodded softly. “ Yeah…”

She leaned forward and kissed me. I let myself fall into it, tasting tea and hints of wine. I put my cup down behind me as I shifted my position in the chair to let her sit on my lap. We hadn’t stopped kissing, growing heated as her fingers worked the buttons of my shirt apart and my hands holding on to her hips, grounding her down on me.

I pulled away and pressed my nose against the side of her face as I tried to catch myself. I could feel her fingers against my chest, the palm of her hand over my heart.

“ Let’s just sleep.” I whispered against the shell of her ear. “ Nothing else. Just you next to me.”

Rey rolled her hips against me. “ I want to feel you. All of you.”

She was trying to work me, get me hard with each roll of her hips, and I would have been lying if I said it wasn’t working. I squealed her hips, attempting to stop her, and pressed my lips against the tender skin at the junction between her jaw and neck. A whimper slipped from her lips.

“ Lets sleep.” I said again.

It was a few more moments of us in that position before Rey untangled herself from me and got on my small bed. She watched as I took off my clothes and moved aside as I slipped into bed. We sought to find a comfortable position, with her finally on top of me, her head resting against my chest.

We lied there in bed, listening to our breathing until we we’re lured into a sleep.

****

Mornings came early while the nights lasted longer as the world inches closer into winter. I awoke with the gleam of the morning light bleeding into my apartment, through the opened curtains that I almost never closed. I felt the warmth of Rey curled against my side and looked down at her sleeping face. She was snoring softly, her lips parted.

I couldn’t help but smile. Usually she was the first one up, but this time I got the chance to look at her sleeping face. She looked so much younger, that it made me realize how stressed and overworked she actually was. Perhaps I was being selfish with my own worries that I didn’t realize her own.

Quietly, I got out of bed and stretched out the tightness in my back. The bed was too small for someone like me and her to share and I subconsciously stayed in one position over night to avoid smothering her in her sleep. I walked into the bathroom, taking off my underwear along the way, and turned on the shower.

My hair was full of shampoo when I heard the shower curtain slide open and Rey step into the tub. I could barely see as I turned around, blinking away the soapy suds that fell into my face. Her hands gently reached across my stomach, up my chest, and around my neck, weaving her fingers at the nape.

“ Good morning…” she said with a smile. I threw my head back to wash the soap out my hair.

“ Morning.” I said, now able to see her standing just inches from me. She leaned up and kissed me and I didn’t hesitate to kiss her back.

Our kiss was lazy, lips and tongues moving against each other, as our hands roamed our bodies. There’s something bubbling at the surface as my hands brush over her spine, and she shivers as she presses against me. The kiss grows heated, as if we were making up for last night.

I feel her hand brush against my cock and I break our kiss to lap at her throat and leave sloppy open mouth kisses against the sensitive skin. I want to leave my mark. I wanted the world to know that she was mine, that she belonged to me. She starts working my cock and I grow hard in her hand.

“ Fuck, Rey…” I groan against her skin.

She stops stroking me and turns around to lean again me — her back to my chest. She moves slightly, her lower back the friction against my hard cock, her head against my shoulder. She takes my hand and guides it to her core. I press two fingers against her clit, and start rubbing circles again the sensitive nub.

It’s enough to make her start moaning my name.

Shower sex is never a practical thing — water makes the important things unbelievably dry and uncomfortable — but this position seemed to work as she leaned forward slightly to let me guide myself into her warmth. I slip in and she takes me fully, her back pressed against my chest, my arms wrapped around her waist and her hands holding onto mine.

“ Ben, please,” she whined as I thrust into her. “ Harder.”

The steam and heat made it hard to breath and focus. It felt so hot as the water hit my back with every quick and violent thrust, the growing lack of air making me fuck her harder to a release. She reached between her legs and touched herself to bring herself closer to orgasm.

We were both mumbling and moaning nonsense until she pressed her thighs together, falling forward and crying out my name as her orgasm rippled through her body, her pussy fluttering around my cock. I held her to keep her from falling down, my thrusts becoming sloppier and faster as I felt my balls clench and that familiar twist at the pit of my stomach.

“ Come for me…”

With a snap of my hips, I poured myself into her right warmth. She stood there breathing heavily as I pumped my cum with shallow thrusts, so sensitive yet feeling so good from the friction and release. I pull out of her and watch as my cum drips from her cunt, her ass red from our fucking.

She was shaking as she pressed her hands against the tiled wall for support.

“ Fuck, Ben, oh my God…”

“ Yeah,” I turned off the water. It was so fucking hard to breath, I swear I was going to pass out. “ Jesus… Christ…”

Rey turned around and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me as if I was the air itself.

We managed to get out the bathroom and onto my bed, dried and naked. Rey was on top of me, her damp hair long and curled at the ends, just brushing against the dusky tips of her nipples. She looked like a Greek goddess as I looked up at her, my hands roaming her body with such an awe I forgot all the doubt I had in my mind.

“ Never forget that I love you and only you.” she said as she took my hands into her own, intertwining our fingers together.

“ I won’t, Rey,” I whispered. “ I love you, too.”

I brought our hand to my lips and pressed a kiss. A part of me at that moment wanted to ask her to spend the rest of our lives together. I lifted our hands and looked at them, imagining rings on them, and my heart soared at the thoughts. I didn’t say anything — I kept them to myself. The marriage. The kids. The house.

But I was so much in fucking love with her, nothing could have told me otherwise. I was determined to make us work.

If only I knew how fucking foolish were then.

****

Jonathan Snoke had a limp to his walk. Yet, despite it, he still commanded an air of suppression and order as he stalked the halls and offices of his agency. The old, balding man with the crooked face paced behind his desk as I sat there watching him with an air of uneasiness.

It was two weeks since I last saw Rey. I got a call from Snoke the following day — wanting to talk about something important. I couldn’t read him over the phone, but I had blown him off, not wanting to deal with whatever he was offering. He was relentless, and I finally caved under pressure.

“ Benjamin Solo,” he said as he continued to pace. “ I have been wanting to speak with you for some time now.”

I didn’t say anything.

“ I read your article. Beautiful work, I must say. Well written and articulate in how you’ve described my Rey. I noticed a particular paragraph, though, that made me question your… reasoning behind it… I almost had Mister Dameron pull it until I realized that it might be to her benefit.

“ So, I wanted to offer you a proposition of sorts. You have a lot of talent and I need someone like you working alongside me at the First Order.”

I shifted in my seat. “ I am busy.”

“ Really? Last I heard you were finally released from your freelancing contract at Condé Nast?”

I kept quiet. Poe was a fucking snake. He sold me off to the First Order, and for what price? What did he get in the deal?

“ I have other work.”

“ Perhaps, but I think that someone like you would enjoy working for us. Salary pay, full benefits, and a personal expense account. But, I have more in mind for you.”

Snoke finally sat down and laced his fingers together. I could see the gold rings that adorned his fingers and the large gem stones that caught the light in all the right places. In contrast to his office, which was a minimal as possible, it was apparent that Snoke enjoyed being the center of attention.

I wanted to know what he wanted, figure out his ulterior motive. At the end of it all, he was the wall between Rey and I.

“ Tell me.”

Snoke’s lips curled into a crooked smile, “ I want you to lead this company’s PR department. You will handle everything concerning media relations, communications… You would essentially be second to me. Also, I would want to make you a talent…. You have such striking looks and I can see a bright future as a model, or hell, even an actor. It’s not everyday that models are executives.”

I blinked, bemused and confused by the sudden offer.

I couldn’t help but laugh, “ What?”

“ I’ve seen you with my Rey. You two look amazing together. A perfect Hollywood couple. With enough work, I can make this work in a way that would benefit us all.”

“ I don’t understand. What makes you think we’re together?”

Snoke raised a bushy eyebrow and picked up a remote. With a press of a button, the red panel behind the old man came down and a large television screen was revealed. He moved out the way to give me an unobstructed view of the screen. With another button press the screen came on and a surveillance video of an empty stairwell appeared.

My stomach dropped.

I remembered that stairwell.

“ You have been a risk to my prized possession since you two met,” Snoke said as the video began to play. I watched as Rey and I came out onto the emergency stairwell. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was obvious that we were arguing. I had not even noticed the cameras at the time. I was so caught up in her and our fucking… situation that I didn’t even think that there could have been cameras.

 “ When I got word of this happening, I had to get the tape before word got out.” Snoke continued as he watched. I felt exposed. I felt naked. I felt violated as I watched what happen unfold on the television screen. Snoke was watching us fuck on the stairwell — each thrust, each shake of her legs around my hips, every kiss, every visible expression of pleasure on her face. “ I couldn’t have this floating around with her about to start her acting career. Rey Niima, caught having sex with a stranger in a stairwell! She’s supposed to be the girl next door, the virgin that any father would kill to protect — and here you come tainting that image.”

I shifted in my seat. “ Turn this off.”

“ Ashamed?”

“ Just turn it off.”

Rey on the television had reached her orgasm.

“ Fine.”

The television cut off just before I had to witness myself come undone. Rage was building inside of me, I wanted to jump across that black table and choke the life out of that man. I gripped the armrest of the seat instead and channeled my anger into that. Snoke turned around and watched me with that disgusting smile.

He knew. He had known this entire time.

“ Rey belongs to me. I own her. Her life is mine to control. If you want her, you need my permission, and the only way I will give you that is if you play along with the narrative and work for me.”

“ And what if I say no?”

“ You will never see her again. Trust me, I can keep her away. Haven’t you noticed?”

Once she went to L.A., that’s when I stopped hearing from her. Hux was right. Finn was right. This agency was truly fucked up and anyone who got involved would eventually be destroyed. I needed to get her out of here, I needed to free her from this enslavement.

I simply couldn’t sell my soul to this perverted old man to do it.

“ I see much anger within you, Benjamin Solo. But, trust me. It’s not worth it. Everything she has done is because I allowed it. I told her to do it. You are nothing to her. But I see potential— and I am willing to make this work if you are willing to join me.”

I stood up, needing to get out of that room. I gave him one more look before I left his office, slamming the door on the way out.

It was crazy. The whole situation was crazy. What had I gotten myself into? I took the stairs, rushing down them as fast as I could to get out of that suffocating building. I didn’t feel as if I could breath until I was out on the street, the fall sun fading behind the tall skyscrapers. I looked up at the sky and took a deep breath to calm my nerves.

Everything was fucked. I didn’t know what was the truth or a lie.

I needed to see it for myself. I needed to get to L.A. and see it for myself, with my own eyes. I had the money — I could do it.

So, like a paranoid lovesick fool I got on the next morning flight to L.A.

I wasn’t going to let an old man poison my thoughts.

****

“ Solo! I did not expect to see you here! Once they told me you were here on the lot, I had to let you in. That article you wrote for us really got the buzz going for this picture.”

The director greeted me with a hug and a slap on the back. It was a gamble coming her, and I didn’t even think I would get access to the set, but apparently Snoke had enough clout to make a director let some nobody like me worthy enough to allow on set. I didn’t want to waste time with small talk. I had to see her.

“ I was wondering if Rey was available? I have some, uh, work I need to finish. An addendum to the article I was writing.”

The director shook his head, “ Yeah. She’s over in her trailer. We won’t be shooting for another hour or so. She’ll be going to hair and makeup in thirty, though. So make it quick.”

I flashed the director a smile, “ Oh. Trust me. This won’t take long.”

The trailers weren’t far from the set, and Rey’s was the second to last trailer in the sea of personal trailers for the cast and above line crew members. I walked up the steps and knocked on the door. I heard a muffled sound and a thump behind the door.

My heart began to beat faster.

I knocked again and the door swung open. On the other side was a man I hadn’t met before. He was young and good looking — probably one of the actors — but he looked disheveled and he wiped his noise. He looked at me and I frowned.

“ Can I help you?” he asked.

“ I’m here for Rey.”

He cocked an eyebrow, “ I haven’t seen you before…”

“ I’m a friend of the director. Have a message to give her.”

“ And you are?”

“ Ben.”

There was a sudden look of recognition on his face and his face went from wary to sudden acknowledgement. He straightened up, running his fingers through his hair and stepped aside. I gave him a look as I stepped into the trailer and waited for him to leave. Once he left I closed the door and looked for Rey.

The trailer wasn’t large, but it wasn’t small either. I slowly made my way to the back, my hands shaking with uncertainty, my heart feeling as if it was going a million miles a minute.

“ Rey?” I called out. “ Rey, it’s me, Ben…”

I came upon a closed door — the bedroom — and gave it a small knock. I didn’t hear anything and I knocked once more before slowly opening the door.

My heart dropped.

I pushed the door aside as I ran over to her on the bed. I dropped to my knees and put my hands on her shoulders. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, it was a mess and undone, and… well…

I didn’t know whether to yell or scream or do both.

Rey looked up at me and wiped her nose of the evidence. Her clothes were in a disarray — her lips were swollen.

It didn’t take much to figure out what had just happened. I looked at the nightstand. There was still a few lines of coke left.

“ Ben…” Rey moaned as she wiped her nose again. “ You’re here…”

“ Yeah, sweetheart, I am.” I said gruffly as I pushed back the hair that had fallen into her face. She giggled and I could faintly smell that guy on her. My stomach dropped.

“ Oh, you know, that guy? He’s my costar. We were — you know — rehearsing a scene we have together.” she giggled and sat up. “ I didn’t know you were coming. They told me not to contact you because, well, I gotta focus on the job, you know? And, I’m just so happy to see you. Oh Ben, I’ve missed you and … I just want you to know what I love you, okay? And whatever happened just now — that meant nothing.”

I glanced at the drugs. “ What happened?”

“ A scene.”

“ Come on, sweetheart, tell me what happened.”

Rey pushed my hands off of her and got up. She began to button her blouse, pacing around the cramped space. I watched her just wanting to know _what_ had happened. The evidence was there that I could figure it out, but I wanted to hear it from her own lips. I looked at the sheets on the bed and I didn’t see anything that would have led on to something much worst happening. I got up and sat down on it. I carded my fingers through my hair and sighed loudly.

“ Rey.” I stressed. “ What happened.”

She turned around, pulling her hair up into a loose pony tail. “ I said we were rehearsing for a scene. Why don’t you believe me?”

I opened my mouth – did I want to accuse her? That wasn’t my intentions when I came here, but yet deep within I couldn’t get that sleezebag out of my mind, and Snoke’s words kept circling through my mind. And then, seeing Rey in this condition –

“ It was a mistake. I should have never come here.”

I got up but she ran to me and grabbed my wrists.

“ No, don’t go. Don’t leave.”

“ Why were you with that guy, then?!” I yelled.

Rey flinched. I pulled my wrists out of her grasp and sighed in frustration. I was so tired of everything. Rey took a few steps back and covered her mouth as she looked at me with wide eyes. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to collect myself. This had all seemed familiar to me – I was honestly no different than my parents. I put my hands on my hips, looked at the bed, then at the tray with the drugs.

“ A scene. Right.” I picked up the tray and looked at the coke. “ Did that scene involve snorting coke?”

She shook her head. I chuckled.

“ I am going to take your word for it,” I put the tray back down and sat back on the bed. I patted the mattress. “ Come here.”

Rey sat next to me and I picked up the black straw that was on the tray.

“ Ben, maybe – “

“ You know what, Rey? I had a talk with your boss. You know, Snoke? Yeah, he spoke to me yesterday. About you. And guess what? He knows – he knows everything. He even has video of us. Can you believe that? What sick fuck keeps shit like that in his coffers?”

“ Ben, I –”

I continued. “ It pissed me off. Oh, God, did it just piss me the fuck off. Him, using you as leverage against me. So I jumped on a flight this morning to see for myself because, you know, everyone said that you were nothing more than Snoke’s little call girl. Then, I come here and I see this fucking schmuck in your trailer looking at me as if I just interrupted you two from something.

“ A scene, you say? A fucking scene? Am I some goddamn idiot, Rey?”

“ Do you think I enjoy this?!” Rey shouted. She got up and spread her arms out, emphasizing the trailer. “ Do you think I want this?! Didn’t I tell you I didn’t want this – I don’t want none of this, but I _have_ to do it because _I_ have no _choice_. You are the _only_ person in my life that I was able to choose for myself and I tried – oh my God, did I fucking _try_ to keep this all from you. But you kept pushing, and pushing, and _pushing_.

“ You want to know what happened? I’ll tell you. We got high and we were about to fuck. Isn’t that what you wanted to hear, Ben? Snoke wanted me to fuck him because he wanted publicity for the movie and what helps a movie other than an affair? So, there’s your answer. All you had to do was just take Snoke's offer and we could have been together, Ben!”

It had gotten quiet. It was so fucking quiet in that trailer that I all I could do was hear myself think of what she had just told me. I swallowed, looking at the straw in my hand. I rolled it between my thumb and index finger contemplating.

There was something in me at that moment that wanted to take it all back. If there was a time machine, I wanted to get in it and travel back before all of this began, before I even met her, when I was just writing shitty articles reviewing restaurants and cafes around New York City. Time machines didn’t exist and here I was stuck in reality with a heart that hurt so much and an urge to just scream and cry out.

So I did. I yelled. I yelled until my throat hurt. I yelled until I couldn’t yell anymore.

Rey stood silently, tears running down her cheeks, as she looked at my pathetic self. I exhaled, wordlessly brought the straw to my nose and did a line.

It fucking burned as the crystals entered my nostril, up directly to the back of my throat and into my bloodstream. But it was a familiar burn, one I remembered all too well once I went for the second line. I put the straw down on the tray and sat there as I waited for the high that would take everything away and make me feel good again.

I wiped my nose, stood up, and looked at Rey. She watched me with an uncertainty. Was she afraid of what I was going to do? I dropped to my knees in front of her and pulled her close to me by her legs, dropping my head down as I tried to fight back the tears that wanted to fall. I could feel her fingers through my hair as she stood there.

I could faintly hear her say, “ Not like this.” Over and over again until she got on her knees and pulled me into a tight embrace. She buried her face in my hair, and I could feel her shaking with tears as she held on to me.

“ I’m so fucking sorry,” I choked between tears and kisses along her mouth, jaw, nose, and cheeks. “ Fuck, Rey, I am so sorry I’m doing this to you.”

We ended up on the floor. I was so numb, trying to feel again, as we fucked. Were we trying to salvage whatever was left of our relationship at that moment or did we have anything to begin with? We were shaking so much, the adrenaline of our heated emotions mixed with the chemicals we ingested overtaking our bodies, and every touch and sensation seemed to be electrifying – too much to bare.

After it was over, we laid next to each other on the floor, our naked bodies exposed to the warm, sex filled air of her trailer. The cocaine was working at that point, and everything felt so euphoric that the frustration I had felt earlier twisted into some monstrous combination of paranoia and excitement.

I heard her get up and walk into the bathroom. The sound of water filled the dead space and I raised my hand up above. I didn’t know how long I was there, on that floor, high as a fucking kite. But it was long enough that I didn’t even know that Rey had dressed and left for hair and make-up.

By the time the high began to lose its edge, I got up and slowly put my clothes back on. I didn’t bother to wash up – I wanted to keep her smell on me. I was afraid to wash it away. Hopelessly clinging on to something that I knew I should have let go a long time ago.

I wandered around the trailer, looking at the little things, before I saw a pen and paper on a table.

****

“ Uncle Luke… yeah – yeah… it’s me. Ben. I think we should talk. Again. Yeah. H-Holdo told me and…” I paused, taking a drag from the cigarette as I looked around from where I was in the phonebooth. “ … I’m so sorry. I – I just need to see you again. I’m afraid that I’ve… lost my way.”

I could hear him breathing on the other side. Then, “ Alright, kid. Let’s have a chat.”

I hung up the phone and waited until I heard the quarter clink down with the rest. I grabbed my bag and swung it over my shoulder, stepping out and into the thrust of people rushing to catch their flights, see their loved one offs, and greet those coming off the plane at the gate. As I past a bookstore, I saw the latest issue of _Vanity Fair_ on the newsstands, and like a magnet to metal, I immediately walked over and picked it up.

I flipped to the final article that I wrote – my eyes lingered on Rey, looking into those hazel eyes that had bewitched me all those months ago. I scanned the page to the final paragraph, the one that Snoke felt threatened by:

_Despite the fame, the fortune, and newly found celebrity, Ms. Niima seems incomplete. Unsatisfied. Perhaps, even frustrated at times with her work. While the young woman isn’t quick to admit this, observing her is like observing a bird trapped in a gilded cage. There’s so much more that she can do, and yet she is reduced to singing the one song that everyone wants to hear. Ms. Niima can offer the world so much more, but is the world ready for her? Does she have the courage to step out on to her own and create her own image?_

_Rey Niima is a pandora’s box. Once opened, what will be revealed?_

I heard my flight being called. I put the magazine back on the shelf and made my way to the gate.

I don’t look back.

END OF PART II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that's it for part ii.
> 
> yes. he broke up with her.
> 
> that was the plan from the very beginning. they were going to clash. and yet, still, the whole truth never came out. ben has always been... how would i say it... full of himself. throwing stones yet he lives in a glass house himself. he always thought of himself as a savior but when rey throws it back in his face, he just couldn't take it. ben is damaged, rey is damaged, and the two need to get themselves fixed. 
> 
> but how?
> 
> that's what part iii is gonna be about. redemption.
> 
> snoke, at the end of the day, wants to control everything and ben was in the way of that. he thought that he could butter him up but he realized that ben was never going to come willingly, so he threatened him. either way, i think snoke got what he wanted. ben was out the picture and he had rey back under his control. but he probably would have been happy controlling both.
> 
> thanks for reading ;)


	19. part iii : chapter i

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> one can not run from their past

“ Hi. My name is Ben and I’m an addict.”

Everyone was giving me that smile — the ‘we are so proud of you’ one — and greeted me with a mellow enthusiasm. I laced my fingers together in my lap as I sat on that uncomfortable plastic chair in a circle surrounded by addicts and their loved ones. I didn’t have anyone come with me. I never did. Every Monday at seven p.m., for the past year I came alone, sat alone, and left alone. I treated the meetings like a confessional; come in, confess, and get some advice for repentance in return.

Half of the people that came never spoke. They didn’t have to because the whole purpose of the program was to do it on their own terms. Admittance was the first step to recovery. Then, salvation.

“ Hi, Ben. How have things been for you?”

Finn was looking at me — that encouraging smile on his face. I pushed my hair back as I looked down and contemplated sharing what was in my mind. I was always willing to accept my vice, but I was never one to own it.

“ Fine.”

“ That’s good.”

I didn’t have to be there. I already completed the program. Went to rehab, got the chip, and stayed sober for a good few years.

But the clusterfuck that my life has become a year ago was enough for me to realize that I was never truly sober. I thought I could manage myself because I made it through the whole program, the rehab, all of it. I thought I had the moral higher ground. Oh, was I wrong.

It was too tempting to self medicate. I relapsed, and that time it was worse than the first. Drinking till I blacked out helped me deal with the anxiety. Getting a gram of coke made me feel good enough to leave my apartment and function for a few hours, before I crashed hard and succumbed to my own demons.

And then there was Rey.

She was everywhere. Billboards. Posters. Television.

The movie was a success. Snoke made it that his investment didn’t go to waste. The world was going to know about Rey Niima — the girl next door with a dark secret.

I didn’t know how to deal with it. I still didn’t know how to deal with it. She had gotten under my skin. Corrupted me.

Finn tapped his pen on the clipboard he was holding. I leaned forward as I crossed my arms, searching for something to say.

“ It isn’t easy,” I eventually said. “ It never will be easy. Every day is a reminder of that… I’m going to keep trying, though. Yeah… that’s it.”

An older woman thanked me for sharing — her nephew, the morphine addict, sank deeper into his seat, after she mentioned something to him about putting the effort into recovery.

I stacked the last chair after the session ended. I always helped with the cleanup and breakdown, and in return Finn let me take home the left over donuts. It was the least I could do after everything that had happened. I’m sure he blamed me for what had happened to Rey. He trusted me to save her, and in the end, I came back crawling to his door step with a bad drinking habit and a growing addiction to benzos.

Finn handed me the box of donuts. “ How have things been with your uncle?”

“ Good. Or at least as good as it can get.” I took the box from him and took a peak: three glazed and four jelly filled were the only ones left. The weird cousins that lived in the building would probably enjoy them.

We walked out the room and into his kitchen. I put the box of donuts down on the table and sat down. Finn poured the old stale coffee into the sink as I reached into my back pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“ I noticed you’re smoking still.”

“ It helps calm the nerves.” I said as I tapped the end of the cigarette on the box. “ I’ve been on edge for a while. It helps.”

“ They say those things will put you in an early grave, you know.”

“ Yeah, but so will everything else.” I lit it and took a long drag. “ I’ve quit before. I can do it again.”

“ That’s the thing, though. You can’t always assume that you can just quit a bad habit. Every relapse just makes the recovery longer and harder.”

The cigarette was resting between my fingers, tobacco slowly burning and the smoke rising and twisting into the air. It was easy for me to quit when I did all those years ago but it was just as easy for me to start again. All because of her and my inability to control my emotions.

I flicked ashes into the ashtray on the table. Finn and Rose didn’t smoke but they had it there for the guests that did. They were always thinking of others, never about themselves. That selflessness was something I admired yet found befuddling all at the same time.

“ I appreciate that you’ve been making the effort and coming to the meetings every week. It means a lot to the group. Shows them that giving up is never an answer.”

“ Eventually I had to swallow my pride.” I took another drag and stubbed the rest of the cigarette out into the ash tray. “ I wouldn’t have been able to work with my uncle if I didn’t.”

“ Speaking of your uncle, how has that been? It’s been about a year, right?”

“ It’s… good.”

Luke and I were hovering around each other like magnets of similar of polar density. We kept our distance in our work, propelling away whenever things got too close for either of our own comfort.

It worked for the most part.

He knew part of the story, but not all of it. He knew I had relapsed, but still was willing to make things work between us. He didn’t push me away like last time — he left me to my own devices. If I crashed and burned, he wouldn’t be there to pull me out the wreckage. It was a weird arrangement but I preferred it that way. I didn’t want him to involve himself in my struggle.

Finn started making a new pot of coffee despite it being nearly ten at night. He loved coffee. Even the addiction therapist had his vice.

 “ Just keep doing what you’re doing, Ben. I know you got this.”

****

Washington Square was crowded with people. Some with their pets while some took advantage of the park. Students from NYU hung out around the monument, but refused to walk under the arch due to some stupid myth. I ran past them, directly under the arch, around the fountain, and looked through the park as I took advantage of the early fall weather for my morning jog.

I was on my third lap around the park when I saw a familiar shock of red hair walking towards me. There was no way I could avoid Armitage Hux as he called out my name in his nasal sounding pompous British accent. Still in his usual attire of three piece suits, he was holding a black leather briefcase. He sorely stood out among the weekenders in their jeans and windbreakers.

“ I knew it was you when I saw you come right through that arch.” Hux said with a smirk. “ Not too many brutes on this side of town.”

We were sitting on one of the benches around the fountain at the center of Washington Square. Pigeons congregated around some kids that were tossing bread onto the pavement while their mothers gossiped far away from their brood.

“ Nice to see you, too, Hux.” I mumbled, playing with the zipper of my tracksuit’s jacket. Up a few inches. Down a few inches. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Up. Up.

“ We all know that’s a bloody lie. Though it is a surprise seeing you here than up in your ghetto. Has that New Yorker income allowed you to move here or have you finally decided to embrace your family’s fortune?”

“ Neither.”

“ What a shame. How someone who was born with a silver spoon can be so willing to live in poverty.”

Hux knew the buttons to press. We had known each other long enough to figure that out. He was trying to get a reaction out of me, but I was tired and heard it all before. I ran a hand down my face with a loud audible sigh and reached my pocket for my cigarettes and lighter. I indulged myself as Hux continued to talk.

“ What is it that you want?” I finally asked after a drag.

“ I haven’t spoken to you in three months and this is how you treat me? I thought we were friends.”

“ Friends?” I laughed. “ The last thing I would ever call our relationship is _friends_. Especially not after what your fucking boyfriend did.”

Hux frowned but he didn’t say anything back in retort. He didn’t because he knew what I said was true — the part about his boyfriend. I had not spoken to Poe since the night at the drinking hole a year ago, but Hux and I had crossed paths enough times in our work to eventually have _that_ conversation.

Hux wasn’t shocked that I had broken up with Rey. He congratulated me instead on making the right choice. I told him to shove the well wishes up his ass, but it was wasted breath. He still enjoyed that fucking thirty dollar lunch while I stalked off somewhere and punched a wall.

I wished that Poe fucked him over, but the two were practically married at this point. Fucking others over was their past time. For all I knew it was their fucking kink.

Hux sighed as he rested his briefcase on his lap, “ Look, I told him it wasn’t worth it. He wanted the story and the access. I can only do but so much, Benjamin.”

“ I don’t care. I’m over it.”

He could shove that apology right up his ass.

We sat there on that park bench in a silence so bitter it would have made lemons taste sweet. Hux drummed his fingers against his briefcase with a pensive rhythm. He didn’t need to sit here with me. He was free to go wherever the fuck he liked but he continued to sit there, drumming his fingers, as people surrounded us blissfully went about their business.

“ I saw her a couple of weeks ago. Photo shoot for that new movie she’s in. She looks… well, take off all the makeup, and it’s bad. The make up artists are pros at hiding the… scars.”

I felt my heart jump. He didn’t need to say her name — it was obvious who he was talking about. My jaw moved as I debated whether taking the bait or leaving it alone.

Recovery was a about moving on, right?

“ What scars?”

“ She’s not shooting up. Not those fucking scars. At least from what I saw. I meant figuratively. Like, you know, she’s running on E.”

“ I can’t do anything about it.”

“ Do you at least care?”

I took one last drag and flicked the cigarette onto the ground.

“ No.”

Of course I did.

I wouldn’t tell him that.

****

A couple of months after the fall out, around the New Year, Rey had begun the press run for her movie. The film wasn’t due to hit theaters until February, but it was all about getting her name out there and making people interested in who she was. Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Joan Rivers… she was everywhere on late night television.

I remembered sitting in Maz’s bar, nursing my third beer as I watched Rey on the Tonight Show laugh it up with Carson and his sidekick. She had cut her hair — the long hair that I had spent nights worshipping in bed had been chopped off to her shoulders. She looked different to me in that sleeveless navy blue dress and stilettos that captured the studio lights in just the right way whenever she bobbed her crossed leg.

There were rumors in the tabloids at the time — murmurs of her dating her costar. Well planned moments of the two leaving clubs and restaurants around town helped with the movie’s buzz and Johnny, in his cheesy late night interviewing style, pounced on her for the confirmation.

She laughed and shook her head.

Silly rumors, that’s all it was.

But was she sure? Had she ever been in love before? A pretty girl like herself had to have been in love once before.

I finished the beer when she answered the question — she had no time for love.

Maz changed the channel to the local community station and gave me a cup of water to wash it down rather than give me the jack that I had ordered.

“ She’s lying, you know.” Maz told me with that all knowing smile and wise eyes behind large glasses. “ That is the face of a woman that is hiding her pain behind a smile.”

“ She isn’t lying. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“ You saw what you wanted to see, not what you needed to see.”

Maz had spoken to Rey the night she had snuck into my apartment. About what, I had no clue, but I never bothered to ask her either. I didn’t want to know about Rey and what she really felt. I was more content with the fictitious lie weaves by Snoke.

It kept me away. I needed to stay away.

It was hard and it became harder as the months rolled on and her star continued to rise. Sometimes I had thought of going back and apologizing, perhaps even take up Snoke’s offer in order to be with her. But I knew that eventually everything would have ended a far lot worse, perhaps even tragically if we had continued.

I was a jealous man and I didn’t want to share.

Reconnecting with Luke was the better choice, even if we never really addressed the problem that cause the schism in the first place. I only told him what he needed to know and he was fine with it. He didn’t try to pry it out of me — what had made me relapsed — he was just glad I was back.

Living with Luke was an odd experience for me. I moved out of my place in Washington Heights just around the time Rey’s movie came out. It was a good enough distraction to keep me from reading the papers or watching the TV. Luke was back in the city, in his old brownstone down on the northern edge of the Village. It had been in the family for years and sat empty most of the time, only acting as a temporary residence for my uncle whenever he came back to the states.

I could have moved in — saved myself the hassle of living in Washington Heights in a prewar walkup — but I has cut myself off from the family and thought living off of my own blood, sweat and tears was a good enough penance for the shit I did when I was young, rich and dumb.

“ You can have the top floor.” He told me from his study as he dropped the keys in my hand. “ It’s empty.”

“ Uh, thanks.”

The top floor had two bedrooms, one facing the street and the other facing the rear, looking into a pathetic looking backyard and the brick wall of an apartment building. It was bigger than my studio and all of my shit managed to fit in one of the rooms just fine. The other room, facing the back, stayed empty.

I could have stayed uptown. The rent was cheap and the fold was good.

But….

…. All it took was a ride on the number two downtown and being stuck on a car surrounded by Rey’s smiling face selling perfume for me to eat my pride and finally move in with Luke.

Running into Hux at the park had caused me to experience those painful memories all over again. Just when I thought I had my shit together and was moving on, he had to pop back into my life and bring her up. It reminded me how I never moved on, that it’s been impossible for me to get over her.

It felt like a guilt. I was supposed to — I wanted to — save her and I let my jealousy blind me and now she was spiraling and no one was there to catch her. I sat at my desk, staring at the old box I had taped shut sitting on the top right hand corner.

Everything from that article assignment was in the box. I had planned on trashing it, but I could never bring myself to do it. The tapes. The pictures. The articles. Even that final issue was all in the box marked VF. I slowly reached for it.

“ Hey, kid.”

Luke’s voice made me jump. I turned around, the box suddenly forgotten, and sigh as I see the old bearded man stand at the door. He always wore the same drab sweaters and khakis — hair unkept and longer than I had remembered when we used to work together.

“ Yeah?”

“ I ordered chinese.”

I get up and take the much-needed distraction.

****

Luke scarfed down the pork fried rice and shrimp lo mein like a man who had been starved for days and had come to experience his first full meal. He always ate like he was starving; a sloppy mess of chopsticks and sauce clinging to his scrubby beard. He looked like a hermit, constantly in dark grays and muted browns. His once blonde hair had darkened into a crazy mess of salt and pepper. It looked like he hadn’t cut it in at least a year.

He was always like this. It wasn’t new to me, it only reminded me of the days spent sitting next to him on a small train in the Himalayas, he animatedly explaining to me the history of the area, screaming over the loud sound of the steam engine roaring just in front of us. He wasn’t one for appearance — his work came before anything else. It was always about the experience of documenting cultures and preserving them for the next generations.

I had enjoyed it too — once.

“ How have you been settling in?” Luke asked me.

“ Fine.”

“ That’s good.”

We didn’t talk much and so every conversation started like this — awkward and impersonal. I was his researcher; I didn’t go with him on location. I never worked directly with him. This piece that “we” were doing was something Luke had been working on for at least two years, about the civil unrest in Nicaragua; he was flying down there for months at a time. I stayed behind and “researched”.

I wanted it that way.

“And you’ve been keeping up with the meetings?”

“ Yeah.”

Luke knew about the relapse. After I had called him in, when the shit hit the fans in L.A. and I was at rock bottom, we had met up at one of his favorite cafes in The Village. He had already been in town a month and rather than seek me out, he told me that he was waiting for me to come to him. Like some old sage on a mountain, waiting for the unscrupulous hero to admit defeat and look for guidance. He listened to me, hand over his scrappy beard, and then shrugged his shoulders and told me to go back to rehab.

“ That’s good.”

I grabbed one of the pints of food and looked inside. It was some gooey, greasy slop of food that I couldn’t quite figure out. I dipped my fork and pulled out a piece of meat.

“ Amilyn has invited us to a gallery opening next week.” I opened my mouth, but he beat me to the punch, “ I told her we’re going.”

“ You never asked if I wanted to go.”

“ I didn’t ask because I knew you were going to say — “

“ No.”

“ — no.”

Luke gave me a sardonic grin and I dropped the meat back in the container. He continued to eat as I sat there, mulling in my thoughts with my glass of water in my hand, trying to come to terms with my new normal.

I had not noticed him grabbing the container and pouring the slop onto his plate.

 Or, the return to my old normal.

****

Abstract paintings in reds, blacks and blues covered the bare white walls of the small studio. There was an installation in the back of the building of four televisions playing the same footage on repeat. I couldn’t quite understand the overall theme of the show, though the guests that were there commented on how bold and unique the paintings were behind their flutes of champagne.

“ Do you understand any of this?” Luke asked me as he observed one of the paintings on the wall. “ Midnight Express… oil in canvas… Eh.”

I shrugged my shoulders. It was aggressive strikes of red and blue against black — it could have been a murder scene for all I could tell. If I had a few glasses of champagne it probably would have made sense to me, but the white grape juice wasn’t doing anything and I doubt a sugar rush was going to make it any better.

“ Maybe it’s the aftermath of a terrible accident.” I eventually said after finishing my clear plastic cup of juice. “ The red strokes are like blood and the blue is like the pieces of the train.”

Luke rubbed his beard, “ And the black must be midnight.”

“ Right.”

“ You’re a genius, Ben.” Luke gave me a slap on the back with a chuckle. He was shorter than me, but he definitely wasn’t weak. I felt the sting through my black leather jacket and winced. He was always stronger than he looked.

“ Luke and Ben! I’m glad you two decided to show up.”

We turned around to see Holdo looking at us with a smile and a mirth that’s reached her blue eyes. She wore a grey high neck, long sleeved dress that made her look longer and taller than usual, and her hair was in that usual twist atop of her head. In comparison, Luke and I were severely underdressed for the event — my uncle in his usual neutral colored cardigan and slacks. I was wearing a black shirt and jeans, hoping the leather jacket would have accented the outfit but I realized I looked more like someone about to go to a bar than someone interested in weird paintings.

“ I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” Luke said with a smile. The two of them laughed. I sighed.

“ I wanted to give my niece a good turnout. Told everyone I knew about it — it’s good to have connections, the turnout was beyond expectation.” Amilyn looked at me, “ Have you met my niece? She is around your age, and I think you two would hit it off pretty well. Her name is Kaydel.”

“ I, uh,” I felt awkward at the obvious attempt on the part of Holdo to play matchmaker with her family members. Did she not realize that I would have been the last person to hook her niece up with? “ She’s the artist?”

“ Yes and she’s over there. You should talk to her.”

Holdo was looking over my shoulder and I took the hint to turn around. Standing near the installation was a short blonde woman in a simple black dress.

And she was talking to someone.

Someone I knew.

Someone that made my heart drop and my mouth dry.

Someone I never thought I’d see again.

She looked up and time stopped. There was no one in the room. The music had stopped playing. The conversations died. We saw each other and it was as if we were looking at ghosts. The smile fell from her face. Her fingers gripped the glass of champagne. Kaydel was talking but she might as well had been talking to her paintings.

I blink, thinking it’s my own sleep deprived brain tricking me into seeing things that weren’t there.

She was still standing there. It wasn’t a trick.

It had been a year but we had finally crossed paths again — Rey and I.

And I wasn’t prepared for what was to happen next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun   
> dun   
> DUN
> 
> thanks for reading :)!


	20. part iii : chapter ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then I saw her. I don’t know how I didn’t see her earlier. But there she was, tucked away in a corner talking to someone that I hadn’t recognized. She was laughing, smiling – she looked happy. My throat went dry. I ceased to think about anything other than that woman standing just feet away from me. 
> 
> Rey looked fucking gorgeous in her costume.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the usual debauchery

 

“ You know what? I think I’ll introduce you two.” Holdo said with a smile and a glint to her blue eyes. I whipped around and forced the panic down my throat. I did not want to see her. I did not want to even be in the same space as her.

I was afraid of what was could have happened. All possible scenarios were playing in my head and each one of them ended badly. Things ended on such fucked up terms, I had avoided finding out what she truly felt.

Holdo had folded her arm around mine and walked us over to where her niece was at. Each footstep got louder the close we got. Time was slowing down. I kept my head down hoping that when I looked up she would have been gone. 

“ Hi, my dear. I wanted to introduce you to Ben Solo. He’s Luke Skywalker’s nephew.”

I looked up. Rey was still there looking at me as if she had seen a ghost.

It wasn’t too far from the truth.

Kaydel turned around. She was shorter than Rey with her hair pulled up into two blonde buns that sat on the top of her head like cat ears. Her eyes brightened when she saw her aunt and broke into a bright smile that contrasted the sheer look of discomfort on Rey’s end. She looked at me and extended her hand out. 

“ Kaydel Connix. And you must be Ben Solo.”

I shook her hand, and forced a small smile, “ That’s right. I, uh, work for your aunt.”

“ I figured.” 

“ I didn’t know you knew Rey Niima!” Holdo said, acknowledging the elephant in the room. Rey smiled, but it was obvious she was planning her escape.

“ We’ve met a few times at galleries.” she said. Not once did she look at me.

“ She’s purchased a few of my pieces.” Kaydel added.

“ Oh! This is something!” Holdo looked at me. “ Kaydel, you read Vanity Fair, right? This boy here wrote that piece on Rey. It was a success for you, wasn’t it, Rey?”

“ Y-yeah. It was, um, nice.”

“ It’s been how long now for you two? A year?”

I looked at Rey. Our eyes met. 

“ Yeah,” I said. “ Just about.”

“ How have things been for you, Ben?”

Rey sounded guarded when she asked me that question. I shrugged my shoulders. “ Never better.”

**** 

We ended up going for drinks afterwards — me and Kaydel — at a watering hole somewhere nearby with cheap drafts and subpar liquor options. After the viewing ended and with Holdo’s insistent personality, I suggested drinks against my better judgement. She was a nice girl; bright and eccentric, but no matter how many beers I tossed back, nothing could make me forget Rey.

She disappeared somewhere after making up some excuse about using the restroom. I watched as she left the building in a blur of a black dress and a white jacket. She never came back, but I don’t think anyone other than me noticed.

“ You’re cute.” Kaydel giggled behind her glass of wine. We ended up buying the whole damned bottle and decimated half of it. She reached and pushed some of my hair out of my face. 

“ People usually say that to me by the fifth shot.”

She snorted. “ Funny.”

“ So, do you…”

“ … my place or yours?”

**** 

We sat on her couch in the darkness of her apartment staring outside the window of what would soon be a new apartment complex, blocking the view of the Hudson River. We fumbled around drunkenly on the taxi ride over to Hells Kitchen and stumbled into her apartment with our hands trying to cop a feel of something, but once we got on the couch and her legs were around my hips, I suddenly couldn’t go through with it.

Any normal man would have whipped their dick out and fucked away the dry spell. I guess I wasn’t that guy.

I immediately thought of Rey and crawled right off of her. She whined, tried to pull me back, but there was no way I could go through with it. Not with one of her, I assumed, friends. Not when I still had feelings for her.

We sat next to each on the couch and masturbated instead.  Hand in pants, jerking my self as she rubbed away with her skirt hitched over her hips, getting off on the drunken act itself than the intimacy. It was the least fulfilling experience but at least we got off. 

I apologized for getting cum on her coffee table as I tucked myself back in.

“ My aunt has been trying to get me married for years,” Kaydel told me when she threw a wet rag into my lap. I took the hint and cleaned up. “ I usually don’t take any of them home. You’re the first.”

“ I guess I should be honored.” I wiped up the mess.

“ Maybe.” She took the rag and disappeared into the kitchen before coming back with two glasses of water. I took the glass and sat back down on the couch. “ You looked like you needed it.”

“ What do you mean.”

“ We aren’t close but she told me of a guy she used to date. A whirlwind of a relationship that started really good but ended really fucking bad. Never said any names but then again after tonight she didn’t have to.”

I felt her eyes on me. I finished the glass of water.

“ You’re taking about Rey.”

“ And you’re the infamous man that broke her little heart.”

So much for first impressions.

I thought we had broke each other down but it didn’t matter to argue about that. It wasn’t any of her business to begin with. I put the glass down, away from smear of my cum, and zipped myself up.

“ It’s a lot more fucking complicated than that.” 

“ Aren’t all relationships?”

“ That’s why I don’t want to talk about it.”

If I squinted, Kaydel’s apartment was filled with canvases of unfinished paintings and scattered art supplies. There was no televisions or stereos. Furniture was bare minimum. I couldn’t tell if this moment was a metaphor for something bigger.

“ You take me to a bar, by me drinks, male out with me, cum all over my table and you don’t want to talk about it when all of this was obviously a rebound against her? I’m smarter than I look, Benny.”

“ I said I don’t want to talk about it.” 

That’s how we spent the rest of the night. In an awkward, perpetual silence in the dark. Until she kicked me out with a promise not to tell her aunt how bad of a potential fuck I was. 

I wondered if Holdo had known about Rey and I and that’s why she invited us to that gallery event. It would have been something she do — scheming without letting anyone know her ulterior motives. I guess that’s why Mom and her got along so well. They both loved having control of the situation.

By the time I got home, the sun was breaking through the horizon and the garbage trucks were finishing their rounds in the city. I pulled out the box full of her things and go through each one — recalling each memory with bitter regret.

**** 

“ Do you want to come with me to Nicaragua?” Luke asked me. “ There’s enough money in the budget to bring you along.”

We were in the study, books and newspapers scattered all over the place from our research. It had been a week since the gallery and Luke hadn’t mentioned anything about my disappearance with his boss’s niece. I guess he didn’t care anymore about whatever I did with my life. 

I still had hoped he’d say something.

“ I don’t speak Spanish. I’d be useless over there.” I mumbled behind an old newspaper. 

“ It never stopped you before.”

I flipped the page rather aggressively. “ Things change. People change.”

He was trying to reconnect with me and I was being stubborn. It probably would have been nice to go to a war torn Central American country on the precipice of a revolution, but I wasn’t looking for excitement and I didn’t want to spend a month wearing a bullet proof vest with PRESS written in large white letters like a target for shooting practice.

When I was younger I lived for those type of trips with Luke. It was so much more exciting than sitting behind a desk crunching numbers and securing accounts. But that Ben died a long time ago.

“ Well, as you may know, I’m scheduled to leave in a week so if you ever change your mind there’s a ticket waiting for you.”

“ Thanks.” I folded the paper. “ I’ll think about it.”

He had already known that was my way of saying no.

“ Amilyn told me that you and her niece managed to hit it off.”

“ Holdo said what now?”

“ I think it’s good that you’re dating again. Amilyn is a friend of the family, as you know, and her niece seems like a good kid.”

“ No, I’m not dating anyone. I’m not dating her niece. We got drinks, that was it.”

“ Drinks.” He said to me as if there was more behind the word. He was right but he didn’t need to know. “ Drinks are better than no drinks.”

“ Says the man whose never been in an relationship his entire life.” I leaned forward for the kill. “ Have you even had sex with anyone?”

Luke rubbed his bearded chin. He was seriously considering my question. 

“ Yeah. A few times. Learned it wasn’t my thing.”

“ Oh.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

**** 

Hux sat across from me in his usual suits and half of his face covered by a large pair of sunglasses. We were at a small café in Chelsea, and I swore to God that the red headed weasel was stalking me. It wasn’t as if we had similar tastes in food but we happened to run into each other anyway — the second time in two weeks.

“ I’ll have the mimosa, and make it extra strong. Tha—aa—nks.” He looked at me once the waitress walked away and shifted into a more comfortable position. “ I think I would call this destiny that we are meeting like this again.”

“ I think you’re stalking me.”

“ I have far more important things to do than chase down a miserable brute like you.”

“ What’s the glasses for?”

“ Oh, you know,” he waved his hand, brushing it off, “ Heavy night. Too much too drink. Too many boys to kiss.”

I quirked about eyebrow. Did that mean Poe and Hux had called it quits? 

“ Poe wanted to spice things up,” Hux explained as if he could read my express. “ You’d be amazed what a twink would do to get VIP access.”

“ No, no. Actually I would not be that amazed.” I’ve seen it first hand when I would go to parties with Hux and Poe during my time at Vanity Fair — once I learned about their relationship. It didn’t matter if were men or women — anyone good looking with access to the stars could get anyone in their bed by the end of the night.

“ Benjamin, you are quite the unicorn. I’ve never met a straight man so comfortable around a fag before. I think that’s why I tolerate you. You don’t judge me for liking cock, you judge me for being an asshole.”

“ Why do I have the feeling that you’re only that crass to make me uncomfortable?” Hux grinned at me.“ Well, I guess I’ll take whatever compliments I can get. Though, seriously, why are you here in my space and not back on the Upper East Side.”

“ My studio is here, or did you forget?” Fuck. “ Also, I did spot you coming out of the subway station and decided to follow you here.” The waitress placed Hux drink down, and he thanked her before continuing, “ I heard from an acquaintance that you went to a rather high profile gallery opening and left with the artist of said gallery who just happens to be the niece of your boss.”

I sighed loudly and motioned for the waitress to come over. I ordered a bloody mary to prepare myself for the shit stirring Hux was about to perform at ten thirty in the morning on a goddamn Monday in the middle of October. I reached into my jacket and took out my cigarettes and lighter.

“ Whatever you heard was a lie,” I said as I tapped the cigarette filter on the table rather pensively. “ Nothing like that ever happened.”

“ In case you didn’t know, we artists tend exist in the same social circles. Somebody knows somebody who’s gonna tell me what I wanna hear and your drama is what I live for.”

“ You’re a sadist.” I said as I lit my cigarette. I take a drag and make sure to blow the smoke right in his face. He waved the smoke away with scrunched nose.

“ I’m just trying to look out for you.” Hux took off his sunglasses and put them on the table. He looked like shit — eyes blood shot with dark circles. He wasn’t lying about pulling the all-nighter. I wondered if he ever got tired of it. 

“ Doesn’t sound like it.”

“ I know about your demons. Holdo told me.” Hux finished his drink. I wasn’t surprised that Holdo ran her mouth and told him. When she wanted to get in the good graces of my family, she would treat me more like a nephew than a problem my mother dropped onto her lap. I don’t know what the two had talked about or why my past was even brought up, but it didn’t matter. Not anymore, at least. 

“ I know what can happen, why could happen, and I appreciate our business relationship enough that I don’t want to find out you’ve choked on your own vomit.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the comment and chuckled. He cocked an eyebrow at me, but I shook my head and leaned back in the chair. The waitress arrived with my drink and I picked it up, stirring the drink with the stick of celery.

“ If I knew better, I’d think you thought of me as your friend.” I took the celery out and put it on the table before taking a sip. It wasn’t cheating if I only indulged myself once a week. Or, at least that’s what I would try to tell myself to justify drinking vodka in the morning.

Hux scoffed. “ I am not your friend.”

“ Well, I’d like to consider you one.” I raised my glass. “ Cheers, friend.”

His face became redder than the tomato juice in my drink.

**** 

Luke had left for Nicaragua the following week, and the brownstone was empty for the third time this year. The trip was only planned for two weeks, but that still didn’t mean that he’d extend it, or some circumstance would delay his return with the political unrest in the area. He left, winking at me, before closing the door with his suitcases in hand. 

I had almost missed having him in the house. Almost. If not to distract me from the old ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer. 

The days were getting colder. Halloween was this weekend, though I had absolutely no plans to partake in any of the drunken debauchery that this hellish city would turn into for the weekend. Finn and Rose were throwing a sober party at their rehab center with, as it was advertised in the flyer, fun for the whole family. The idea of being in a room full of recovering addicts and their family members made me uncomfortable. The meetings were awkward enough, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes with the crack addict while kids trick or treated wasn’t appealing at all.

A scene like that would have driven someone like me to run to the nearest bodega and buy the biggest fucking bottle of Crown Royal. 

I was happier spending the weekend alone in that three-story brownstone surrounded by books about despots. After a year of being surrounded by Hollywood, I reveled in the peace and quiet of being an errand boy for my uncle. 

About an hour after Luke had left, the phone rang. If I had been living on my own, I would have let the answering machine pick it up, but it wasn’t my place and it could have been someone over at the magazine looking for Luke. I put my pen down and got up out of the study. I picked up the phone in the hallway, because this brownstone was older than the live oak trees planted outside of it, and answered it.

I didn’t expect to hear the voice on the other end.

“ How’s things over there, Benny.” 

I mumbled a curse as I carded my fingers through my hair. “ Great. How’d you get this number, Kaydel?”

I heard her laugh. “ Your boss. My aunt. But, calm down there, grumpy. This isn’t what you think.”

With the rumor mill churning out all sorts of nonsense about myself and Amilyn Holdo’s niece, I honestly didn’t want to provide anything else that could be used to exasperate the situation. All I kept thinking was what would Rey think – I didn’t want her to think that I had moved on. 

As silly as that sounded.

“ Halloween is this Saturday,” Kaydel continued. “ I’m extending an invite to my party. Dress code is simple – wear a costume.”

“ I don’t do parties.”

“ I know. I think you would like to go to this one.” She stopped talking to me for a brief moment to bark some order to someone. “ Some people of interest will be there. Do you know where my studio is at?”

“ I’m not going.”

“ It’s off of tenth avenue and thirty-seventh street. Big brick building. Take the service elevator access up to the fourth floor. You’re already on the list. It starts at ten.”

She hung up before I could say anything else. I pulled the receiver away and looked at the old rotary phone for a few moments, trying to wrap my mind around the recent call, and then hung up. 

There was no way in hell I was going to that party. For all I knew those persons of interest were Hux and his insufferable boyfriend.

**** 

I was a fucking idiot. 

The looks I got on the subway to Penn Station and on the street to wherever the hell this party was at helped in reaffirming that fact. Then again, wearing a white sheet with eyeholes crudely cut out really showcased the example of the least amount of effort put into a Halloween costume. Kaydel said I needed a costume, and this was a costume. It was already ten thirty at night and the drunks were already out causing a ruckus in the street. It seemed like every bar and restaurant had either _Thriller_ or _Ghostbusters_ playing on repeat as the Halloween parties took off around town.

Even as I got closer to the piers, there was no way I could escape the nauseating chorus of _Ghostbusters_ and the drunken call and responses pouring into the street. But I managed to find the building and found the service elevator. There was a stocky guy standing in front of it with a clipboard – he was shorter than me, but I didn’t doubt that the bouncer could take me out if he wanted to. 

“ Name?”

The man didn’t even look twice at my costume. 

“ Ben.” I cleared my throat. “ Ben Solo.”

He flicked on his flashlight and looked at the list. Then he pulled out a walkie talkie and mumbled something about a guest for arrival. “ Wait here.”

The service elevator door slid open and inside was another bouncer standing under a flood light. He stood next to the controls and motioned for me to get inside. I wordlessly followed instruction and the bouncer pulled the door down and locked it. He gave me a once over before snorting and pressed a button that made the elevator jolt alive and slowly climb up to the party.

I looked up as the elevator rose and the faint thumping of party music got louder and louder.

“ We’re here.” 

The man opened the door and I was greeted by a packed room with strobe lights and loud music. There were smoke machines in the corners, giving a hazy ambiance to the air, and kitsch Halloween decorations hanging from the exposed pipes of the loft. I cautiously made my way into the party, consciously aware of how the elevator door slammed such behind me and swallowed my nerves as I tried to spot a corner to hide in for the rest of the night.

I was already regretting leaving my quiet abode.

I saw an empty table in the far corner of the room, and I sighed in relief. I pushed through the dancing guests, and when I was almost a step away from the table, a woman dressed like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan jumped into my view. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it was Kaydel Connix. 

“ What a costume, Benny. Real original.” she snarked as she gave me a once over. 

“ How’d you know.”

“ You’re the only giant I know.”

“ I’m only six two.”

“ Look around you, Benny, you’re the only giant here.”

She was right. I was the only guy taller than six feet in this damned room. I pinched the bridge of my nose with a sigh.

“ I’m here so who is it. Who’s the persons of interests.”

Kaydel reached into a little pouch that hung from her hips and lifted a fisted hand to her lips. She uncurled her fingers and blew glitter into my face before running off, giggling and calling for someone that sounded like it rhymed with Poe. I turned around and saw, as I fucking knew it, Poe and Hux talking with the blonde artist. The couple weren’t even matching – Poe dressed in what appeared to be a costume based off of Edgar Allan Poe and Hux, well, I guess one of those space nazis from that Star Wars movie made sense. 

The music and lights were a bizarre combination of techno and blues and purples. People danced as if they were dancing to Duran Duran, even though the music sounded like it came from Satan’s Casio keyboard. I decided to find the bar.

“ Whaddaya have, Casper?” the bartender asked me. I opened my mouth, about to correct him, until I realized it wasn’t worth it.

“ Tonic with lime.” I sighed instead. I pulled out my wallet and tipped him a dollar. 

“ You sure you can drink that?” he asked as he pushed the drink towards me.

“ What do you mean?” 

He pointed to his mouth and then I realized that the sheet didn’t have a hole for my mouth. I shrugged my shoulders and took the drink. It was a five-minute costume; it wasn’t like I was planning on practicality. 

I made my way back to the table and sat down with a huff. I watched the party – there wasn’t many people there. Probably thirty people tops and I only knew three of them. Whoever Kaydel said was going to be here wasn’t here. I was starting to realize that she probably tricked me into coming to continue whatever we had started the night of her gallery opening.

I took off the sheet, rolled it into a ball, and put it on the table. I finished my tonic and watched as people partied without noticing the giant in the corner. 

Then I saw her. I don’t know how I didn’t see her earlier. But there she was, tucked away in a corner talking to someone that I hadn’t recognized. She was laughing, smiling – she looked happy. My throat went dry. I ceased to think about anything other than that woman standing just feet away from me. 

Rey looked fucking gorgeous in her costume.

I stand up. I don’t know what possessed me at that moment, but I push my way through the guests, and I open my mouth –

\-- she turns around and her smile falls. The light from her eyes disappear and it’s like she’s remembering all the heart ache over again. 

“ Uh, I – I – Shit.” I sounded like an idiot. “ Hi.”

“ Hi.” she finally manages. She didn’t expect me here. Kaydel never told her. The expression on her face said it all. She probably thought this was some cruel joke. 

The music suddenly changed. The song – Don’t You Forget About Me – started playing and I thought the DJ was playing a cruel fucking joke at that moment. 

The person she was talking to – some guy dressed up as Vincent Price – looked at us and quietly excused himself. The song continued into the chorus. _Don’t you forget about me_ , the man sung against the synth, _will you stand above me, look my way, never love me._  

“ I thought this was a costume party.” Rey eventually said. 

“ You look good.” I replied. “ Audrey Hepburn. Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

“ Right.” She shifted uncomfortably. My heart raced to the point it was hurting. Why did this hurt so much? “ And you are supposed to be, what? A scumbag?”

I deserved that.

I licked my lips. “ A-a ghost. It’s… I took it off. I forgot to cut holes out to drink.”

“ How did you get here?”

“ I was invited.”

“ By who?”

“ Kaydel.”

She sucked in a breath and narrowed her eyes. “ That scheming little skank.”

_I won’t harm you or touch your defenses, vanity and security. Don’t you forget about me. I’ll be alone, dancing you know it, baby._

“ Do you…”

_Going to take you apart. I’ll put us back together at heart, baby._

The words died on my tongue. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. What could I have said at that moment? The song was fucking distracting me and all I could think of was taking her by the hand and just dragging her out of that party so I could think properly of what I wanted to say. 

The lights played upon her. She looked older, more mature than the ponytail swinging girl I had met nearly two years ago. There were bags under her eyes, the makeup was thick enough to cover the freckles that dusted her round cheeks. She looked skinner than I had remembered. Her hair was longer, darker than the chocolate that it used to be. Smoothed, straightened, and pulled into that iconic Hepburn hairstyle. 

I wanted to kiss her. Apologize for what I had done.

“ I heard about you and Kaydel,” Rey said. “ I thought she was lying. Guess it wasn’t a lie after all.”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

“ Nothing happened.”

“ That’s what you did to me, too, right? Is that some M.O. of yours?”

“ Rey… I swear to God, nothing happened.”

“ If you think I’m a mess, she’s far worse.” 

Rey turned around to leave but I quickly reached for her, grabbing her bicep in some reactionary response. I didn’t want her to leave me. I didn’t want to let go. She looked at my hand and then at me.

“ Let go.”

“ Rey, please, let’s just get out of here and talk about it. Okay? I promise… I promise I won’t do anything. Just let us talk.”

_Don’t you forget about me. As you walk on by. Will you call my name?_

I let go of her and she looked at me. I licked my lips, my breathing heavy, my hands shaking. She could walk away and never come back to me, and maybe, just maybe I would have been fine with that. 

But I knew that we had something. I knew that we could make this work again.

_Come on, call my name. Will you call my name?_

Rey looked at me and sighed.

“ Fine.”

As we left the party, I could see Kaydel watching us from where she stood, partly listening to Poe ramble on about something to her. She mouthed something to us that I didn’t quite get, but it was enough to get Hux’s attention. He glanced over his shoulder and I could see disappointment all over his face.

We stepped into the elevator and didn’t look at each other as it made its rocky decent. Nor did we stand next to each other. It was as if we were nothing more than complete strangers.

Perhaps we were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the comments and reviews! i do understand that this is an emotionally heavy story and i definitely beat up reylo in this fic, but don't worry, there is a HEA planned. we need it, especially after TROS. 
> 
> but this year will mark 2 years working on this story. luckily though, there's not much left to go!
> 
> thank you so much and it always makes me happy to read your thoughts!


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